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a 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART 


31 Noocl 






BY 


W. CLARK RUSSELL 

AUTHOR OP “ AN OCEAN TRAGEDY ” “ THE WRECK OP THE ‘ GROSVENOR ’ ” 

“the frozen pirate” “a sailor’s sweetheart” ETC. 


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“ Between us we ran the ensign half-mast highy [See p. 59. J 





MY DANISH SWEETHEART 

a Novel 



W. CLARK RUSSELL 

VI 

AUTHOR OP 

“a sailor’s sweetheart” “the wreck of the ‘grosvenor’” 
“the frozen pirate” “an ocean tragedy” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
1891 


x °\ 


W. CLAEK KUSSELL’S SEA STOEIES. 


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CONTENTS 


chap. page 

I. A SULLEN DAY 1 

II. A NIGHT OF STORM 12 

III. IN THE LIFE-BOAT 24 

IV. HELGA NIELSEN 37 

V. DAWN 48 

VI. CAPTAIN NIELSEN 61 

VII. THE RAFT 72 

VIII. ADRIFT 83 

IX. RESCUED 95 

X. THE “EARLY MORN” 107 

XI. HEADING SOUTH 121 

XII. A LONGSHORE QUARREL 133 

XIII. A SAILOR’S DEATH 147 

XIV. THE END OF THE “EARLY MORN ” 158 

XV. CAPTAIN JOPPA BUNTING 171 

XVI. ON BOARD “ THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 5 ’ 185 

XVII. A CREW OF MALAYS 200 

XVIII. BUNTING’S FORECASTLE FARE 213 

XIX. WE ARE SPOKEN 228 

XX. I MAKE FREE 241 

XXI. JOPPA IS IN EARNEST 253 

XXII. A NIGHT OF HORROR 266 

XXIII. A CONFERENCE 2 79 

xxiv. helga’s plot 293 

XXV. FIRE ^07 

XXVI. HOME 321 


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ILLUSTRATIONS. 


“ Between us we ran the ensign half-mast high " Frontispiece 

“ ‘ I see him now,' he continued , turning his eyes blindly upon 
my face. 4 There's nothen I forget about him. There's 
his sleeve lying beautifully pinned agin his breast , and 
the fin of his decapitated harm a-working of excitement 

within '" Faces page 6 

“ I made a spring , and got into the fore-chains " . 44 30 

“A huge black rat flashed from my shoulder. 4 If there be 
truth in the pi'overb ' said I, 4 we need no surer hint of 
what is coming than the behavior of that rat '" . . . “ 82 

“As I spoke she grasped her dress , and with a bound gained 

the raft" “ 86 

“It is impossible to imagine the plaintive , wailing note her 
voice had as she uttered those Danish words : 4 I am fa- 
therless !'" “ 98 

“ ‘ Why, yes!' he cried; ‘ now I'm sure of it. Wasn't you 

once a boy, mum?"' “ 116 

“As the clipper stormed past, Jacob sprang on to a thwart, 
and, in an ecstasy of greeting, shrieked out, * How d'ye 

do, sir? Glad to see ye, sir!"' “ 128 

“ Helga took me by the arm. 4 Oh, Hugh, silence them! — they 

will come to blows ' " “ 144 

Listen!' shouted Jacob, and he sent his voice, in a bull-like 

roar into the blackness astern : 4 Tom-mee !"' .... “ 148 

“He seized the brim of his hat, and said, suppose you are 

the two distressed parties the sailor called out about?"' 44 164 

“While he addressed the boatmen, the others stood doggedly 

looking on" “ 1*78 


viii 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 




“ On a sudden, however, she turned and suffered him to put 
the coat on her , which he did with great ostentation of 


anxiety and a vast deal of smiling ” Faces page 192 

“ '‘But de beautiful young lady, she sabbee nabigation V ” . . “ 204 

“ ‘ I desire continued the captain, very blandly, ‘ to get rid of 
your deplorable prejudices as I would extinguish a side of 

bacon — rasher by rasher *” “ 224 

“ ‘ Have they read the message , do you think, Mr. Jones V cried 

Helga ” “ 240 







MY DANISH SWEETHEART 


Ubc IRomance of a flDontb. 


CHAPTER I. 

A SULLEN DAY. 

On the morning of October 21, in a year that one need not count 
very far back to arrive at, I was awakened from a light sleep into 
which I had fallen after a somewhat restless night by a sound as of 
thunder some little distance off, and on going to my bedroom win- 
dow to take a view of the weather I beheld so wild and forbidding 
a prospect of sea and sky that the like of it is not to be imagined. 

The heavens were a dark, stooping, universal mass of vapor — 
swollen, moist, of a complexion rendered malignant beyond belief 
by a sort of greenish color that lay upon the face of it. It was 
tufted here and there into the true aspect of the electric tempest; 
in other parts, it was of a sulky, foggy thickness ; and as it went 
down to the sea-line it wore, in numerous places, a plentiful, heavy, 
dark shading that caused the clouds upon which this darkness rest- 
ed to look as though their heavy burden of thunder was weighing 
their overcharged breasts down to the very sip of the salt. 

A small swell was rolling in between the two horns of cliff which 
framed the wide bight of bay that I was overlooking. The water 
was very dark and ugly with its reflection of the greenish, sallowish 
atmosphere that tinged its noiseless, sliding volumes. Yet, spite of 
the shrouding shadow of storm all about, the horizon lay a clear 
line, spanning the yawn of ocean and heaven between the foreland , 
points. 


2 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


There was nothing to be seen seaward, the bay, too, was empty. 
I stood for a little while watching the cloud of foam made by the 
swell where it struck upon the low, black ledge of what we called in 
those parts Deadlow Rock, and upon the westernmost of the two 
fangs of reef some little distance away from the rock, and named 
by the sailors hereabouts the Twins; I say I stood watching this 
small play of white water, and hearkening for another rumble of 
thunder, but all remained hushed — not a breath of air — no glance of 
dumb lightning. 

On my way to the parlor I looked in upon my mother, now an 
old lady, whose growing infirmities obliged her to keep her bed till 
the day was advanced. I kissed and greeted her. 

“ It seems a very dark, melancholy morning, Hugh,” says she. 

“ Aye, indeed,” I answered. “ I never remember the like of such 
a sky as is hanging over the water. Did you hear the thunder just 
now, mother?” 

She answered no, but then, to be sure, she was a little deaf. 

“ I hope, Hugh,” said she, with a wistful shake of her head and 
smoothing her snow-white hair with a hand that slightly trembled, 
“ that it may not end in a life-boat errand. I had a wretched dream 
last night. I saw you enter the boat and sail into the bay. The 
sun was high, and all was bright and clear; but on a sudden the 
weather grew black — dark as it now is. The wind swept the water, 
which leaped high and boiled. You and the men strove hard to re- 
gain the land, and then gave up in despair, and you put right before 
the wind, and the boat sped like an arrow into the gloom and haze ; 
and just before she vanished a figure rose by your side where you 
sat steering, and gazed at me thus” — she placed her forefinger upon 
her lip in the posture of one commanding silence. “It was your 
father, Hugh : his face was full of entreaty and despair.” She sighed 
deeply. “ How clearly does one sometimes see in dreams !” she add- 
ed. “ Never was your father’s face in his dear life more distinct to 
my eyes than in this vision.” 

“ A Friday night’s dream told on a Saturday,” said I, laughing : 
“ no chance of its coming true, though. No fear of the Janet ” — 
for that was the name of our life-boat — “ blowing out to sea. Be- 
sides, the bay is empty. There can be no call. And supposing one 
should come, and this weather should burst into a hurricane, I’d 
rather be afloat in the Janet than in the biggest ship out of London 
or Liverpool docks ;” and so saying I left her, never giving her dream 
or her manner another thought. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


3 


After I had breakfasted I walked down to the esplanade to view 
the Janet as she lay snug in her house. I was her cockswain, and 
how it happened that I filled that post I will here explain. 

My father, who had been a captain in the merchant service, had 
saved money, and invested his little fortune in a couple of ships, in 
one of which, fifteen years before the date of this story, he had em- 
barked to take a run in her from the river Thames to Swansea, where 
she was to fill up with cargo for a South American port. She was 
a brand-new ship, and he wished to judge of her sea-going qualities. 
When she had rounded the North Foreland the weather thickened, 
it came on to blow a gale of wind, she took the ground somewhere 
near the North Sand Head, and of twenty-three people aboard of her 
fifteen perished, my father being among those who were drowned. 

His brother — my uncle, George Tregarthen — was a well-to-do 
merchant] in the city of London, and in memory of my father’s 
death, which grieved him to the soul, and which, with the loss of 
the others, had come about through delay in sending help from the 
land — for they fired guns and burned flares, and the adjacent light- 
ship signalled with rockets that a vessel was ashore ; but all to no 
purpose, for when the rescue was attempted the ship was breaking 
up, and most of her people were corpses, as I have said — my uncle, 
by way of memorializing his brother’s death, at his own cost pre- 
sented the little town in which my father had lived with a life-boat, 
which he called the Janet , after my mother. I was then too young 
to take a part in any services she rendered, but by the time I had 
reached the age of twenty I was as expert as the smartest boatman 
on our part of the coast, and as I claimed a sort of captaincy of the 
life-boat by virtue of her as a family gift, I replaced the man who 
had been her cockswain, and for the last two years had taken her 
helm during the six times she had been called upon ; and not a lit- 
tle proud was I to be able to boast that, under my charge, the Janet 
in those two years had rescued twenty-three men, five women, and 
two children from certain death. 

No man could love his dog or his horse — indeed, I may say, no 
man could love his sweetheart — with more fondness than I loved my 
boat. She was a living thing, to my fancy, even when she was high 
and dry. She seemed to appeal to me out of a vitality that might 
well have passed for human, to judge of the moods it kindled in me. 
I would sit and view her, and think of her afloat, figure some dread- 
ful scene of shipwreck, some furious surface of seething yeast, with 
a ship in the heart of it, coming and going amid storms of spray ; 


4 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


and then I would picture the boat crushing the savage surge with 
her shoulder, as she stormed through the tremendous play of ocean 
on her way to the doomed craft whose shrouds were thick with men, 
until such emotions were raised in me that I have known myself al- 
most unconsciously to make an eager step to the craft, and pat her 
side, and talk to her as though she were sentient and could under- 
stand my caress and whispers. 

My mother was at first strongly opposed to my risking my life in 
the Janet. She said I was not a sailor, least of all was I of the kind 
who manned these boats, and for some time she would not hear of 
me going as cockswain in her, except in fine weather, or when there 
was little risk. But when, as cockswain, I had brought home my first 
little load of precious human freight — five Spaniards, with the cap- 
tain’s wife and a little baby, wrapped in a shawl, against her heart — 
my mother’s reluctance yielded to her pride and gratitude. She 
found something beautiful, noble, I had almost said divine, in this 
life-saving — in this plucking of poor human souls from the horrible 
jaws of death — in the hope and joy, too, raised in the heart of the 
shipwrecked by the sight of the boat, or in the supporting animation 
which came from knowledge that the boat would arrive in time, and 
which enabled men to bear up, when, perhaps, had there been no 
promise of a boat coming to them, they must have drooped and sur- 
rendered their spirits to God. 

Well, as I have said, I went down to the esplanade, where the boat- 
house was, to take a look at the boat, which was, indeed, my regular 
daily custom, one I could find plenty of leisure for, since I was with- 
out occupation, owing to a serious illness that had balked my efforts 
six years before, and that had left me too old for another chance 
in the same way — and without will, either, for the matter of that, 
for my mother’s income was abundant for us both, and, when it 
should please God to take her, what was hers would be mine, and 
there was more than enough for my plain wants. 

Before entering the house I came to a stand to light a pipe and 
cast a look around. The air was so motionless that the flame of the 
match I struck burned without a stir. I took notice of a slight in- 
crease in the weight of the swell which came brimming into the bay 
out of the wide, dark field of the Atlantic Ocean ; for that was the 
sea our town faced, looking due west from out of the shadow of the 
Conwall heights, at the base of which it stood — a small, solid heap 
of granite-colored buildings dominated by the tall spire of the church 
of St. Saviour, the gilt cross atop of which gleamed this morning 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


5 


against the scowl of the sky as though the beam of the risen sun 
rested upon it. 

The dark line of the broad esplanade went winding round with the 
trend of shore to the distance of about a mile. The dingy atmos- 
phere gave it a coloring of chocolate, and the space of white sand 
which stretched to the wash of the water had the glance of ivory 
from the contrast. The surf was small, but now that I was near I 
could catch a note in the noise it made as it foamed in a cloudy 
line upon the sand, which made me think of the voice of a distant 
tempest, as though each running fold brought with it, from far past 
'the sea-line, some ever-dying echo of the hurricane’s rage there. But 
a man had need to live long at the seaside to catch these small ac- 
cents of storm in the fall and pouring of the unvexed breaker. 

A number of white-breasted gulls, with black-edged wings, were 
flying close inshore this side the Deadlow Rock and Twins: their 
posture was, in the main, one of hovering and peering, and there was 
a sort of subdued expectancy rather than restlessness in their mo- 
tions; but they frequently uttered sharp cries, and were certainly 
not a-fishing, for they never stooped. Within a stone’s-throw of the 
life-boat house was a coast-guard’s hut, a little place for keeping a 
lookout from, marked by a flag-post ; and the preventive man, with 
a telescope under his arm, stood in the door-way, talking to an aged 
boatman named Isaac Jordan. The land past that flag-staff went in 
a rise, and soared into a very noble height of dark cliff, the extrem- 
ity of which we called Hurricane Point. It looked a precipitous, 
deadly, inhospitable terrace of rocks in the dismal light of that lead- 
en morning. The foreland rose out of the bed of foam which was 
kept boiling at the iron base by the steadfast hurl of the Atlantic 
swell; yet Hurricane Point made a fine shelter of our bay when the 
wind came out from the north, and I have seen the sea there burst- 
ing and soaring into the air in volumes of steam, and the water a 
mile and a half out running wide and wild and white with the whip- 
ping of the gale, when, within, a wherry might have strained to her 
painter without shipping a cupful of water. 

There was an old timber pier going into the sea from off a pro- 
jection of land, upon the northernmost point of which the life-boat 
house stood ; this pier had a curl like the crook of a sailor’s rheu- 
matic forefinger ; but it was not possible to find any sort of harbor 
in the rude, black, gleaming embrace of its pitched and weedy piles, 
save in smooth and quiet weather. It was an old pier, and had with- 
stood the wash and shocks of fifty years of the Atlantic billow — 


6 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


enough to justify a man in staring at it, since ours was a wild and 
stormy seaboard, where everything had to be as strong as though 
we were at sea, and had the mighty ocean itself to fight. At times 
a collier would come sailing round Bishopnose Point, a tall, reddish- 
hued bluff, past Deadlow Rock, and slide within the curve of the pier, 
and discharge her freight. Here, too, in the seasons, might be seen a 
cluster of fishing-boats, mainly the sharp-ended luggers of Penzance ; 
but this morning, as I have already said, all was vacant from the 
horizon to the white sweep of sand — vacant, and, in a manner, mo- 
tionless, too, with the quality of stagnation that came into the pict- 
ure out of the sullen, breathless, gloom-laden atmosphere, nothing* 
stirring, as it seemed, save the heave of the swell, and a few active 
figures of longshoremen down by the pier hauling up their boats 
high and dry upon the sand, with an eye to what was coming in the 
weather. 

I entered the life-boat house and killed ten minutes or so in sur- 
veying the fabric inside and out, and seeing that everything was in 
readiness should a call come. A ship’s barometer — a good instru- 
ment — hung against the wall or bulkhead of the wooden edifice. 
The mercury was low, with a depression in the surface of the metal 
itself that was like emphasizing the drop. 

Our manner of launching the Janet was by means of a strong tim- 
ber slipway that went in a pretty sharp declivity from the fore-foot 
of the boat to some fathoms past low-water-mark. There could be 
no better way of getting her water-borne. The sand was flat ; there 
was little to be done with a heavy boat on such a platform, let us 
have laid what greased woods or rollers we chose under her keel. 
But from the elevation of her house she fled, when liberated, like a 
gull into the rage of the water, topping the tallest comber, and giv- 
ing herself noble way in the teeth of the deadest of inshore hurri- 
canes. 

As I stood at the head of this slipway, looking along it to where 
it buried itself in the dark and sickly green of the flowing heave of 
the sea, old Isaac Jordan came slowly away from the coast-guards- 
man and saluted me in a voice that trembled under the burden of 
eighty-five years. Such another quaint old figure as this might have 
been hunted for in vain the whole coast round. His eyes, deep- 
seated in his head, seemed to have been formed of agate, so stained 
and clouded were they by time, by weather, and, no doubt, by drink. 
His tall hat was bronzed with wear and exposure, the skin of his face 
lay like a cobweb upon his lineaments, and when he smiled he ex- 


I see him now” he continued , turning his eyes, blindly upon my face. ‘ There's nothen I forget about him. There's his sleeve lying 

beautifully pinned agin his breast , and tlce Jin of his decapitated harm a-working of excitement within.' ” 









THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


7 


hibited a single tobacco-stained tooth, which made one think of 
Deadlow Rock. Isaac did not belong to these parts, yet he had 
lived in the place for above half a century, having been brought 
ashore from a wreck in which he had been found, the only occupant, 
lying senseless upon the deck. When he was recovered he was 
without memory, and for five years could not have told his father’s 
name nor the place he hailed from. When at last recollection re- 
turned to him he was satisfied to remain in the corner of this king- 
dom on which the ocean, so to speak, had cast him, and for fifty 
years he had never gone half a mile distant from the town unless 
seaward, and then never beyond the bay, where he would fish for his 
own feeding, or ply as a carrier between the shore and such ships 
as brought up. 

“Good-marning, Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, in the accent of Whit- 
stable, which was his native place; “reckon there’ll be some work 
afore ye if so be as this here muckiness ain’t agoing to blow away,” 
and here he turned up his marbled eyes to the sky in a sort of blind, 
groping way. 

“I never remember the like of such a morning as this, Isaac,” said 
I, going down to him that I might not oblige him to strain his poor 
old trembling voice. 

“ Lard love ye !” he exclaimed ; “ scores and scores, Mr. Tregarthen. 
I recollect of just such another marning as this in forty-four ; aye, 
an’ an uglier morning yet in thirty-three. That were the day when 
the Kingfisher went down and drownded all hands, saving the dawg.” 

“ What’s going to happen, d’ye think, Isaac ?” 

“ A gale o’ wind, master, but not yet. He’s a bracing of himself 
up, and it ’ll be all day, I allow, afore he’s ready and once again 
he cast up his agate-like eyes to the sky. 

“ What’s the day o’ the month, sir ?” he added, with a little brisk- 
ening up. 

“ October the twenty-first, isn’t it ?” 

“ Why, Gor bless me ! yes, an’ so it be !” he exclaimed, with a 
face whose expression was rendered spasmodic by an assumption of 
joyful thought. “The hanniversary of Trafalgar, as sure as my 
name’s Isaac! On this day Lord Nelson was killed. Gor bless me! 
to think of it ! I see him now,” he continued, turning his eyes blind- 
ly upon my face. “ There’s nothen I forget about him. There’s his 
sleeve lying beautifully pinned agin his breast, and the fin of his de- 
capitated harm a-working full of excitement within ; there’s his cocked 
hat drawed down ower the green shade as lies like a poor man’s 


8 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


plaister upon his forehead ; there’s his one eye a-looking through and 
through a man as though it were a brad-awl, and t’other eye, said to 
be sightless, a-imitating of the seeing one till ye couldn’t ha’ told 
which was which for health. There was spunk in the werry wounds 
of that gent. He carried his losses as if they was gains. What a 
man ! There ain’t public-houses enough in this country,” said he, 
“ to drink to the memory of such a gentleman’s health in. There 
ain’t. That’s my complaint, master. Not public-houses enough, I 
says, seeing what he did for this here Britain.” 

Though nobody in Tintrenale (as I choose to call the town) in the 
least degree believed that old Isaac had ever met Lord Nelson, de- 
spite his swearing that he was five years old at the time and that he 
could recollect his mother hoisting him up in her arms above the 
heads of the crowd to view the great admiral — I say, though no man 
believed this old fellow, yet we all listened to his assurances, as though 
very willing to credit what he said. In truth, it pleased us to be- 
lieve that there was a man in our little community who with his own 
eyes had beheld the famous sailor, and we let the thing rest upon 
our minds as a sort of honorable tradition which we would not very 
willingly have disturbed. However, more went to this talk of Nel- 
son in old Isaac than met the ear ; it was, indeed, his way of asking 
for a drink, and, as he had little or nothing to live upon save what 
he could collect out of charity, I slipped a couple of shillings into his 
hand, for which he continued to God bless me till his voice failed him. 

I held my gaze fixed upon the sky for some time, to gather, if 
possible, the direction in which the great, swollen canopy of cloud 
was moving, that I might know from what quarter to expect the 
wind when it should arise ; but the sullen greenish heaps of shadow 
hung over the land and sea as motionless as they were dumb. Not 
the least loose wing of scud was there to be seen moving. It was a 
wonderfully breathless heaven of tempestuous gloom, with the sea at 
its confines between the two points of land looking to lift to it in 
its central part as though swelled, owing to the illusion of the line 
of livid shade there, and to a depression on either side caused by a 
smoky commingling of the atmosphere with the spaces of water. 

While I stood surveying the murky scene, that was gradually 
growing more dim with an insensible thickening of the air, several 
drops of rain fell, each as large as a half-crown. 

“ Stand by now for a flash o’ lightning,” old Isaac cried, in his 
trembling voice ; “ wance them clouds is ripped up, all the water they 
hold ’ll tumble down and make room for the wind !” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


9 


But there was no lightning. The rain ceased. The stillness seem- 
ed to deepen to my hearing, with a fancy to my consciousness of a 
closer drawing together of the shadows overhead. 

“ ’T’ain’t so wery warm, neither,” said old Isaac ; “ and yet here 
be as true a tropic show as old Jamaikey herself could pro wide.” 

Every sound was startlingly distinct — the calls and cries of the 
fellows near the pier as they ran their boats up ; the grit of the keels 
on the hard sand, like the noise of skates travelling on ice ; the low, 
organ-like hum of the larger surf beating upon the coast past Bishop- 
nose Point ; the rattle of vehicles in the stony streets behind me ; 
the striking of a church bell — the hoarse bawling of a hawker cry- 
ing fish : it was like the hush one reads of as happening before an 
earthquake, and I own to an emotion of awe and even of alarm as I 
stood listening and looking. 

I hung about the boat-house for hard upon two hours, expecting 
every minute to see the white line of the wind sweeping across the 
sea into the bay ; for by this time I had persuaded myself that what 
motion there was above was out of the westward ; but in all that 
time the glass-smooth dark-green surface of the swell was never once 
tarnished by the smallest breathing of air. Only one particular that 
was absent before I now took notice of : I mean a strange, faint, salt 
smell, as of sea-weed in corruption, a somewhat sickly odor of ooze. 
I had never tasted the like of it upon the atmosphere here ; what it 
signified I could not imagine. One of my boat’s crew, who had 
paused to exchange a few words with me about the weather, called 
it the smell of the storm, and said that it arose from a distant dis- 
turbance working through the sea through leagues and leagues, as 
the dews of the body are discharged through the pores of the skin. 

This same man had walked up to the heights near to Hurricane 
Point to take a view of the ocean, and now told me there was noth- 
ing in sight, save just a gleam of sail away down in the north-west, 
almost swallowed up in the gloom. He was without a glass, and 
could tell me no more than that it was the canvas of a ship. 

“ Well,” said I, “ nothing, if it be not steam, is going to show it- 
self in this amazing calm.” And, saying this, I turned about and 
walked leisurely home. 

We dined at one o’clock. We were but two, mother and son ; 
and the little picture of that parlor arises before me as I write, bring- 
ing moisture to my eyes as I recall the dear, good, tender heart never 
more to be beheld by me in this world — as I see the white hair, the 
kindly aged face, the wistful looks fastened upon me, and hear the 


10 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


little sighs that would softly break from her when she turned her 
head to send a glance through the window at the dark malignant 
junction of sea and sky ruling the open between the points, and at 
the frequent flashing of the foam on those evil rocks grinning upon 
the heaving waters, away down to the southward. I could perceive 
that the memory of her dream lay upon her in a sort of shadow. 
Several times she directed her eyes from my face to the portrait of 
my father upon the wall opposite her. Yet she did not again refer 
to the dream. She talked of the ugly appearance of the sky, and 
asked what the men down about the pier thought of it. 

“ They are agreed that it is going to end in a gale of wind,” I an- 
swered. 

“ There is no ship in the bay,” said she, raising a pair of gold- 
rimmed glasses to her eyes and peering through the window. 

“ No,” said I ; “ and the sea is bare, saving a single sail somewhere 
down in the north-west.” 

She smiled, as though to a piece of good news. There could be 
no summons for the life - boat, she knew, if the bay and the ocean 
beyond remained empty. 

After dinner, while I sat smoking ray pipe close against the fire — 
for the leaden color in the air somehow made the atmosphere feel 
cold, though we were too far west for any touch of autumnal raw- 
ness just yet — and while my mother sat opposite me, poring through 
her glasses upon a local sheet that told the news of the district for 
the week past — the rector of Tintrenale, the Rev. John Trembath, 
happening to pass our window, which was low-seated, looked in, and 
spying the outline of my figure against the fire, tapped upon the 
glass, and I called to him to enter. 

“ Well, Mr. Cockswain,” says he, “ how is this weather going to 
end, pray ? I hear there’s a ship making for this bay.” 

“ I hope not,” says my mother, quietly. 

“ How far distant is she ?” said I. 

“ Why,” he answered, “ I met old Roscorla just now. He was 
fresh from Bishopnose way, and told me that there was a square- 
rigged vessel coming along before a light air of wind out of the west, 
and apparently heading straight for this bight.” 

“ She may shift her helm,” said I, who, though no sailor, had yet 
some acquaintance with the terms of the sea ; “ there’ll be no shelter 
for her here if it comes on to blow from the west.” 

“ And that’s where it is coming from,” said Mr. Trembath. 

“ O for a little break of the sky, for one brief gleam of sunshine 1” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


11 


cried my mother, suddenly, half starting from her chair as if to go 
to the window. “ There is something in a day of this kind that de- 
presses my heart as though sorrow were coming. Do you believe in 
dreams, Mr. Trembath ?” and now I saw she was going to talk of her 
dream. 

“ No,” said he, bluntly ; “ it is enough to believe in what is proper 
for our spiritual health. A dream never yet saved a soul.” 

“Do you think so?” said I. “Yet a man might get a hint in a 
vision, and in that way be preserved from doing a wrong.” 

“ What was your dream ?” said Mr. Trembath, rounding upon my 
mother ; “ for a dream you have had, and I see the recollection of it 
working in your face as you look at me.” 

She repeated her dream to him. 

“ Tut ! tut !” cried he, “ a little attack of indigestion. A small 
glass of your excellent cherry brandy would have corrected all these 
crudities of your slumbering imagination.” 

Well, after an idle chat of ten minutes, which yet gave the wor- 
thy clergyman time enough to drink to us in a glass of that cherry 
brandy which he had recommended to my mother, he went away, 
and shortly afterwards I walked down to the pier to catch a sight 
of the ship. In all these hours there had been no change whatever 
in the aspect of the weather. The sky of dark cloud wore the same 
swollen, moist, and scowling appearance it had carried since the early 
morn; but the tufted, thunder - colored heaps of vapor had been 
smoothed out or absorbed by the gathering thickness, which made 
the atmosphere so dark that, though it was scarcely three o’clock in 
the afternoon, you would have supposed the sun had set. The swell 
had increased : it was now rolling into the bay with weight and vol- 
ume, and there was a small roaring noise in the surf already, and a 
deeper note yet in the sound of it where it boiled seawards past the 
points. A light air was blowing, but as yet the water was merely 
brushed by it into wrinkles which put a new dye into the color of 
the ocean — a kind of inky green — I do not know how to convey it. 
Every glance of foam upon the Twins or Deadlow Rock was like a 
flash of white fire, so sombre was the surface upon which it played. 

Hurricane Point shut out the view of the sea in the north-west, 
even from the pier-head, and the ship was not to be seen. There 
was a group of watermen on the lookout, one or two of them mem- 
bers of the life - boat crew ; and among these fellows was old Isaac 
Jordan, who, as I might easily guess, had drunk out my two shillings. 
He wore a yellow sou’-wester over his long, iron -gray hair, and he 


12 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


lurched from one man to another, with his arm extended and his fin' 
gers clawing the air, arguing in the shrill voice of old age, thickened 
by the drams he had swallowed. 

“ I tell ’ee there’s going to be a airthquake,” he was crying, as I 
approached. “ I recollects the likes of this weather in eighteen hun- 
nerd an’ eighteen, and there was a quake at midnight that caused the 
folks at Favershara to git out of their beds and run into the street ; 
’twor felt at Whitstable, and turned the beer o’ th’ place sour. Stand 
by for a airthquake, I says. Here’s Mr. Tregarthen, a scholard. The 
likes of me, as is old enough to be grandad to the oldest of ye all, 
may raison with a scholard and be satisfied to be put right if so be 
as he’s wrong, when such scowbankers as you a’n’t to be condescend- 
ed to outside the giving of the truth to ye. And so I says. Mr. 
Tregarthen ” — 

, But I quietly put him aside. 

“ No more money for you, Isaac,” said I, “ so far as my purse is 
concerned, until you turn teetotaler. It is enough to make one blush 
for one’s species to see so old a man ” — 

“ Mr. Tregarthen,” he interrupted, “ you’re a gin’man, ain’t ye ? 
What have I ’ad ? Is a drop o’ milk and water going to make ye 
blush for a man ?” 

Some of the fellows laughed. 

“And how often,” he continued, “is the hanniversary of the bat- 
tle o’ Trafalgar agoing to come round in a year ? Twenty-voorst of 
October to-day is, and I see him now, Mr. Tregarthen, as I see you — 
his right fin agoing, his horders upon his breast ” — 

“Here, come you along with me, Isaac!” exclaimed one of the 
men ; and seizing the old fellow by the arm he bore him off. 


CHAPTER II. 

A NIGHT OF STORM. 

I overhung the rail of the pier looking down upon the heads of 
the breakers as they dissolved in white water amid the black and 
slimy supporters of the structure, and sending a glance from time 
to time towards the northern headland, out of which, I gathered 
from the men about me, the ship would presently draw, though no 
one could certainly say as yet that she was bound for our bay, spite 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


13 


of her heading direct in for the land. A half-hour passed, and then 
she showed : her bowsprit and jib-booms came forking out past the 
chocolate-colored height of cliff, and the suddenness of this present- 
ment of white wings of jibs and staysail caused the canvas to look 
ghastly for the moment against the dark and drooping smoke-colored 
sky that overhung the sea where she was — as ghastly, I say, as the 
gleam of froth is when seen at midnight, or a glance of moonshine 
dropping spear-like through a rift, and making a little pool of light 
in the midst of a black ocean. 

I watched her with curiosity. She was something less than three 
miles distant, and she drew out very stately under a full breast of 
sail, rolling her three spires — the two foremost of which were clothed 
to the trucks — with the majesty of a war ship. We might now make 
sure that she was bound for the bay and meant to bring up. The 
air was still a very light wind, which made a continuous wonder of 
the muteness of the storm-shadow that was overhead ; and the ves- 
sel, which we might now see, was a bark of six hundred tons or 
thereabouts, floated into the bay very slowly. Her canvas swung as 
she rolled, and made a hurry of light of her, and one saw the glint 
of the sails broaden in the brows of the. swell which chased and un- 
derran her, so reflective was the water, spite of the small wrinkling 
of it by the weak draught. 

“ A furriner,” said a man near me. 

“ Aye,” said I, examining her through a small but powerful pock- 
et-telescope ; “ that green caboose doesn’t belong to an Englishman. 
She’s hoisting her color ! Now I have it — a Dane !” 

“ What does she want to come here for ?” exclaimed another of 
the little knot of men who had gathered about me. “Something 
wrong, I allow.” 

“ Master drunk, per’aps,” said a third. 

“He’ll be making a lee zhore of our ugly bit of coast, if it 
comes on to blow from the west’ard ; and if not from there, then 
where else it’s coming from who’s going to guess?” exclaimed a 
gruff old fellow, peering at the vessel under a shaggy, contracted 
brow. 

“ Her captain may have a trick of the weather above our compre- 
hension,” said I. “ If the gale’s to come out of the north he’ll do 
well where he lets go his anchor ; but if it’s to be the other way 
about — well, I suppose some of our chaps will advise him. Maybe 
he has been tempted by the look of the bay ; or he may have a sick 
or a dead man to land.” 


14 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Perhaps he has a mind to vind us a job to-night, zur,” said one 
of my life-boat’s men. 

We continued watching. Presently she began to shorten sail, and 
the leisurely manner in which the canvas was first clewed up and 
then rolled up was assurance enough to a nautical eye that she was 
not overmanned. I could distinguish the figure of a short, squarely- 
framed man, apparently giving orders from the top of a long house 
aft, and I could make out the figure of another man, seemingly young, 
flitting to and fro with a manner of idle restlessness, though at inter- 
vals he would pause and sweep the town and foreshore with his 
telescope. 

About this time five men launched a swift, powerful boat of a 
whaling pattern off the sand on to which it had been dragged that 
morning, far beyond high- water-mark. They ran the little fabric 
over a line of well- greased planks or skids, and sprang into her as 
her bow met the first roll of water, and in a breath their oars were 
out and they were sweeping the boat towards the bark, making the 
spray spit from the stem to the herculean sweep of the blades. She 
was a boat that was mainly used for these errands — for putting help 
aboard ships which wanted it — for taking pilots off and bringing 
them ashore, and the like. So slow was the motion of the bark that 
she was still floating into the bay with her anchors at the catheads, 
and a few heads of men along the yards furling the lighter canvas, 
when the boat dashed alongside of her. When the stranger was 
about a mile and a half distant from the point of pier which I watch- 
ed her from, she let go her top-sail halliards — she carried single sails 
— and a few minutes later her anchor fell, and she swung slowly, 
with her head to the swell and the light wind. 

Scarcely was she straining to the scope of cable that had been paid 
out, when the boat which had gone to her left her side. The men 
rowed leisurely ; one could tell by the rise and fall of the oars that 
their errand had proved a disappointment — that there was nothing 
to be earned, nothing to be done, neither help nor counsel wanted. 
I walked down to that part of the sands where she would come 
ashore, but had to wait until her crew had walked her up out of the 
water before I could get any news. Our town was so dull, our hab- 
its of thought so primitive as to be almost childlike ; the bay, for 
long spells at a time, so barren of all interests that the arrival of a 
vessel, if it were not a smack or a collier, excited the same sort of 
curiosity among us as a new-comer raises in a little village. A ship 
bringing up in the bay was something to look at, something to spec- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


15 


ulate upon ; and then, again, there was always the expectation among 
the longshoremen of earning a few pounds out of her. 

I called to one of the crew of the boat after she had been secured 
high and dry, and asked him the name of the vessel. 

“The Anine ,” says he. 

“ What’s wrong with her ?” said I. 

“ Nothing but fear of the weather, I allow,” said he. “ She’s from 
Cuxhaven, bound to Party Alleggy, or some such a hole away down 
in the Brazils.” 

“ Porto Alegre, is it ?” said I. 

“ Aye,” he answered, “ that zounds nearer to tbe name that vur 
given to us. She’s got a general cargo aboard. The master’s laid 
up in the cabin ; the chief mate broke un’s leg off Texel, and they 
zent him into Partsmouth aboard of a zmack. The chap in charge 
calls himself Damm. I onderstood he’z carpenter, acting as zecond 
mate. But who’s to follow such a lingo as he talks ?” 

“ He’s brought up here with the master’s sanction, I suppose ?” 

“Can’t tell you that,” he answered, “for I don’t know. ’Pears to 
me as if this here traverse was Mr. Damm’s own working out. He’s 
got a cross-eye, and I don’t rightly like his looks. He pointed aloft 
and zhook his head, and made us understand that he was here for 
zhelter. Jimmy,” meaning one of the boat’s crew, “ pointed to the 
Twins, and Mr. Damm he grins and says, ‘Yaw, yaw, dot’s right!”’ 

“ But if he’s bound to the Brazils,” I said, “ how does it happen 
that he is on this side the Land’s End ? Porto Alegre isn’t in Wales.” 

Here another of the boat’s crew who had joined us said : “ I un- 
derstood from a man who spoke a bit of English that they was bound 
round to Swansea ; but what to take in, atop of a general cargo, I 
can’t say.” 

The sailors aboard the vessel were now slowly rolling the canvas 
upon the yards. She was a wall - sided vessel, with a white figure- 
head and a square stern, and she pitched so heavily upon the swell 
sweeping to her bows, that one could not but wonder how it would 
be with her when it came on to blow in earnest, with such a sea as 
the Atlantic in wrath threw into this rock - framed bight of coast. 
She rolled as regularly as she courtesied, and gave us a view of a 
band of new metal sheathing that rose with a dull, rusty gleam out 
of the water, as though to some swift-vanishing touch of stormy sun- 
light. The white lines of her furled canvas, with the delicate inter- 
lacery of shrouds and running - gear, the fine fibres of her slender 
mast-heads, with a red spot of dog- vane at the mizzen-mast — the 


16 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


whole body of the vessel, in a word, stood out with an exquisite 
clearness that made the heaving fabric resemble a choicely-wrought 
toy upon the dark, tempestuous green which went rising and falling 
past her, and against the low and menacing frown of the sky beyond 
her. 

A deeper shadow seemed to have entered the atmosphere since she 
let go her anchor. Away down upon her port quarter the foam was 
leaping upon the black Twins and the larger rock beyond, and the 
round of the bay was sharply marked by the surf twisting in a wool- 
white curve from one point to another, but gathering a brighter 
whiteness as it stretched towards those extremities of the land which 
breasted the deeper waters and the larger swell. 

The clock of St. Saviour’s Church chimed five — tea-time ; and as 
I turned to make my way home two bells were struck aboard the 
bark, and the light inshore wind brought in the distant tones upon 
the ear with a fairy daintiness of Jaint music that corresponded to 
perfection with the toy- like appearance of the vessel. One of the 
crew of the boat accompanied me a short distance on his way to his 
own humble cottage in Swim Lane. 

“If that Dutchman,” said he — and by “Dutchman” he meant 
Dane, for this word covers all the Scandinavian nations in Jack’s 
language — “ if that Dutchman, Mr. Tregarthen, knows what’s good 
for him, he’ll up anchor and * ratch ’ out afore it’s too late.” 

“ Did you see the captain ?” 

“ No, sir. He’s in his cabin, badly laid up.” 

“ I thought I made out two men on top of the deck-house who 
seemed in command — one the captain, and the other the mate, as I 
supposed.” 

“ No, sir ; the capt’n’s below. One of them two men you saw 
was the carpemer, Damm ; t’other was a boy — a passenger he look- 
ed like, though dressed as a sailorman. I didn’t hear him give any 
orders, though his eyes seemed everywhere, and he looked to know 
exactly what was going forward. A likelier-looking lad I never see. 
Capt’n’s son, I dare say.” 

“ Well,” said I, sending a glance above and around, “ spite of 
drunken old Isaac and his prediction of ‘ airthquakes,’ as he calls 
them, it’s as likely as not, to my mind, that all this gloom will end 
as it began — in quietude.” 

The man, one of the most intelligent of our longshoremen, shook 
his head. 

“ The barometer don’t tell lies, sir,” said he ; “ the drop’s been 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


17 


too slow and regular to signify nothing. I’ve known a gale o’ wind 
to bust after taking two days to look at the ocean with his breath 
sucked in, as he do now. This here long quietude’s the Worst part ; 
and — Smother me ! Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, halting and turning 
his face seawards, “if the draught that was just now blowing ain’t 
gone !” 

It was as he had said. The light breathing of air had died out, 
and the swell was rolling in, burnished as liquid glass. 

This day-long, extraordinary pause in the most menacing aspect 
of weather that I had ever heard of — and never in my time had I 
seen the like of it — seemed to communicate its own quality of breath- 
less suspense to every living object my eye rested upon. The very 
dogs seemed to move with a cowed manner, as though fresh from 
a whipping. There was no alacrity ; little movement, indeed, any- 
where visible. Men hung about in small groups and conversed quiet- 
ly, as though some trouble that had affected the whole community 
was upon them. The air trembled with the noise of the breaking 
surf, and there was a note in its voice, sounding as it did out of the 
unnatural, dark hush upon sea and land, that constrained the atten- 
tion to it as to something new and even alarming. A tradesman, 
with his apron on and without a hat, would come to his shop-door 
and look about him uneasily, and perhaps have a word with a cus- 
tomer as he entered before going round to the counter and serving 
him. The gulls flew close inshore and screamed harshly. Here and 
there, framed in a darkling pane of window, you would see an old 
face peering at the weather and pale in the shadow. 

I found my mother a good deal troubled by the appearance of the 
ship. She asked, with a’ pettishness I had seldom witnessed in her, 
“ What does she want ? Why does she come here ? £>o they court 
destruction ?” 

I told her all that I had learned about the vessel. 

“ There was no occasion for them to come here,” she said. “ Your 
dear father would have told you that the more distant a ship is upon 
the ocean in violent weather the safer she is; and here now come 
the foolish Danes to nestle among rocks, and to sneer at the advice 
our people give them, with the sky looking more threatening than 
ever I can remember it. Who could have patience with such folk?” 
she cried, pouring out the tea with an air of distraction and an agi- 
tated hand. “ If there were no such sailors as they at sea I am sure 
there would be no need for life-boats, and brave fellows would not 
have to risk their lives, and perhaps leave their wives and little chil- 
2 


18 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


dren to starve, to assist people whose stupidity renders them almost 
unfit to be rescued.” 

“ Why, mother,” cried I, “ this is not how you are accustomed to 
talk about such things.” 

“ I am depressed,” she answered ; “ my spirits have taken their 
color from the day — a most melancholy, heavy day indeed ! Hark, 
my dear ! Is not that the sound of wind?” 

She looked eagerly, straining her hearing. 

“ Yes,” said I, “ it is the wind come at last, mother,” catching, at 
the instant of her speaking, the hollow groaning in the chimney of 
a sudden gust of wind flying over the house-top. “From which 
quarter does it blow ? I must find out.” 

I ran to the house-door, and as I opened it the wind blew with 
the sweep of a sudden squall right out of the darkness upon the 
ocean. It filled the house, and such was the weight of it that I 
drove the door to with difficulty. It was but a quarter before six, 
but the shadow of the night had entered to deepen the shadow of 
the storm, and it was already as dark as midnight. I went to the 
window and parted the curtains to take a view of the bay, but the 
panes of glass were made a sort of mirror of by the black atmosphere 
without, and when I looked they gave me back my own countenance, 
darkly gleaming, and the reflection of objects in the room — the lamp 
with its green shade upon the table, the sparkle of the silver and the 
china of the tea-things, and my mother’s figure beyond. Yet, by 
peering, I managed to distinguish the speck of yellow lustre that de- 
noted the riding light of the Danish bark — the lantern, I mean, that 
is hung upon a ship’s forestay when she lies at anchor ; otherwise, 
it was like looking down into a well. Nothing, save the flash of the 
near foam tumbling upon the beach right abreast of the house, was 
to be seen. 

“ Which way does the wind come, Hugh ?” called my mother. 

“ From the westward, with a touch of south in it, too, right dead 
inshore. It is as I have been expecting all day.” 

That night of tempest began in gusts and squalls, with lulls be- 
tween, which were not a little deceptive, since they made one think 
that the wind was gone for good, though while the belief was grow- 
ing there would come another shrieking outrush and a low roaring 
in the chimney, and such a shrill and doleful whistling in the case- 
ments which there was no art in carpentry to hermetically seal against 
the winds of that wild, rugged western coast, as might have made 
one imagine the air to be filled with the ghosts of departed boat- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


19 


swains plying their silver pipes as they sped onwards in the race of 
black air. 

Somewhile before seven o’clock it had settled into a gale, that was 
slowly but obstinately gathering in power, as I might know by the 
gradually raised notes in the humming it made, and by the ever- 
deepening thunder of warring billows rushing into breakers and 
bursting upon sand and crag. It came along in a furious play of 
wet, too, at times ; the rain lashed the windows like small shot, and 
twice there was a brilliant flash of lightning that seemed spiral and 
crimsoned, but if thunder followed, it was lost in the uproar of the 
wind. It was a night to “ stand by,” as a sailor would say ; at any 
moment a summons might come, and while that weather held I knew 
there must be no sleep for me. It would have been all the same, in- 
deed, bark or no bark, for this was a night to make a very hell of the 
waters along our line of coast. There was not another life-boat sta- 
tion within twenty-five miles ; and even had the bay been empty, as 
I say, yet, as cockswain of the boat, I must have held myself ready 
for a call — ready for the notes of the bell summoning us to the res- 
cue of a vessel that had been blown out of the sea into the bay — 
ready for a breathless appeal for help from some mounted messenger 
despatched by the coast - guards miles distant to tell me that there 
was a ship stranded, and that all hands must perish if we did not 
hurry to her. 

My mother sat silent, with her face rendered austere by anxiety. 
It was about eight o’clock, when some one knocked hurriedly at the 
door. I ran out, being too eager to await the arrival of the servant ; 
but instead of some rough figure of a boatman which I had expect- 
ed to see, in swept Mr. Trembath, who was carried by the violence 
of the wind several feet along the passage before he could bring him- 
self up. I put my shoulder to the door, but believed I should have 
had to call for help to close it, so desperate was the resistance. 

“ What a night ! What a night !” cried the clergyman. “ What is 
the news? You will not tell me, Tregarthen, that the ship yonder 
is going to hold her own against this wind and the sea that is run- 
ning ?” 

“ Pray step in,” said I. “ You are plucky to show your face to it !” 

“ Oh, tut !” he cried ; “ it is not for a clergyman any more than 
for a seaman to be afraid of weather. I fear there’ll be a call for 
you, Tregarthen. I thought I would look round — I have finished 
my sermon for to-morrow morning and thus talking in a disjoint- 
ed way while he pulled off his top-coat, he entered the parlor. 


20 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


After warming himself, and exchanging a few sentences with my 
mother about the weather, he began to talk again about the bark. 

“ Hark to that, now !” he cried, as the wind struck the front of 
the house with a crash that had something of the weight of a great 
sea in the sound of it, while you heard it in a roar of thunder over- 
head, charged always with an echo of pouring waters. “ What chain 
cables wrought by mortal skill are going to hold a vessel in the eye 
of all this ?” 

“ What business have they to come here ?” cried my mother. 

“I met young Beckerley just now,” continued Mr. Trembath, 
“and he tells me that there’s some talk among our men of there hav- 
ing been a mutiny aboard that Dane.” 

“ Nothing was said to me about that,” I rejoined. 

“ Beckerley was in the boat’s crew that boarded her,” he went on. 
“Probably he imagined a mutiny — misinterpreted a gloomy look 
among the Danes into an air of revolt. Any way, nothing short of 
a mutiny should justify a master in anchoring in such a roadstead 
as this in the face of the ugliest sky I ever saw in my life.” 

“ They told me the master was below, ill and helpless,” said I. 

He went to the window and parted the curtains to peer through, 
but the wet ran down the glass, and it was like straining the gaze 
against a wall of ebony. 

“ You see,” he continued, coming back to his chair, “ the vessel 
has those deadly rocks right under her stern ; and even if her cables 
don’t part, it is impossible to suppose that she will not drag and be 
on to them in the blackness, perhaps without her people guessing at 
her neighborhood until she touches — and then God help them !” 

“ I suppose Pentreath,” exclaimed my mother, naming the second 
cockswain of the life-boat, “ is keeping a lookout ?” 

“We need not doubt it,” I answered. “As to her dragging,” said 
I, addressing Mr. Trembath, “ the Danes are as good sailors as the 
English, and understand their business ; and, mutiny or no mutiny, 
those fellows down there are not going to take whatever may come 
without a shrewd guess at it, ^ind outcry enough when it happens. 
They’ll know fast enough if their vessel is dragging ; then a flare will 
follow, and out we shall have to go, of course.” 

“We!” said he, significantly, looking from me to my mother. 
“You’ll not venture to-night, I hope, Tregarthen.” 

“ If the call comes, most certainly I shall,” said I, flushing up, but 
without venturing to send a glance at my mother. “ I have appoint- 
ed myself captain of my men, and is it for me, of all my boat’s crew, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


2i 


to shirk my duty in an hour of extremity ? Let such a thing hap- 
pen, and I vow to Heaven I could not show my faee in Tintrenale 
again.” 

Mr. Trembath seemed a little abashed. 

“I respect and admire your theory of dutifulness,” said he; “but 
you are not an old hand — you are no seasoned boatman in the sense 
I have in my mind when I think of others of your crew. Listen to 
this wind ! It blows a hurricane, Hugh,” he exclaimed, gently; “you 
may have the heart of a lion, but have you the skill — the experi- 
ence — ” He halted, looking at my mother. 

“ If the call comes I will go,” said I, feeling that he reasoned only 
for my mother’s sake, and that in secret his sympathies were with 
me. 

“ If the call comes, Hugh must go,” said my mother. “ God will 
shield him. He looks down upon no nobler work done in this world, 
none that can better merit His blessing and His countenance.” 

Mr. Trembath bowed his head in a heart-felt gesture. 

“Yet I hope no call will be made,” she went on. “lama moth- 
er” — her voice faltered, but she rallied, and said, with courage and 
strength and dignity, “ Yes, I am Hugh’s mother. I know what to 
expect from him, and that whatever his duty may be he will do it,” 
Yet in saying this she pressed both her hands to her heart, as though 
the mere utterance of the words came near to breaking it. 

I stepped to her side and kissed her. “ But the call has not yet 
come, mother,” said I. “The vessel’s anchors may hold bravely, 
and then, again, the long, dark warning of the day will have kept 
the coast clear of ships.” 

To this she made no reply, and I resumed my seat, gladdened to 
the very heart by her willingness that I should go if a summons 
came, albeit extorted from her love by perception of my duty ; for 
had she been reluctant, had she refused her consent, indeed, it must 
have been all the same. I should go whether or not, but in that case 
with a heavy heart— with a feeling of rebellion against her wishes 
that would have taken a deal of spirit out of me, and mingled a 
sense of disobedience with what I knew to be my duty and good in 
the sight of God and man. 

I saw that it comforted my mother to have Mr. Trembath with 
her, and when he offered to go I begged him to stop and sup with 
us, and he consented. It was not a time when conversation would 
flow very easily. The noise of the gale alone was subduing enough, 
and to this was to be added the restlessness of expectation, the con- 


22 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


viction in my own heart that sooner or later the call must come ; and 
every moment that I talked — putting on the cheerfulest face I could 
assume — I was waiting for it. I constantly went to the window to 
look out, guessing that if they burned a flare aboard the bark, the 
torch-like flame of it would show through the weeping glass; and 
shortly before supper was served — that is to say, within a few min- 
utes of nine o’clock — I left the parlor, and going to a room at the 
extremity of the passage, where I kept my sea-going clothes, I pulled 
on a pair of stout fisherman’s stockings, and over them the sea-boots 
I always wore when I went in the life-boat. I then brought away 
my monkey-jacket and oil-skins and sou’- wester, and hung them in 
the passage ready to snatch at ; for a summons to man the boat al- 
ways meant hurry — there was no time for hunting : indeed, if the 
call found the men in bed, their custom was to dress themselves as 
they ran. 

Thus prepared, I returned to the parlor. Mr. Trembath ran his 
eye over me, but my mother apparently took no notice. A cheer- 
ful fire blazed in the grate. The table was hospitable with damask 
and crystal ; the play of the flames set the shadows dancing upon 
the ceiling that lay in the gloom of the shade over the lamp. There 
was something in the figure of my old mother, with her white hair 
and black -silk gown and antique gold chain about her neck, that 
wonderfully fitted that homely interior, warm with the hues of the 
coal -fire, and cheerful with pictures, and with several curiosities of 
shield and spear, of stuffed bird and Chinese ivory ornament, gath- 
ered together by my father in the course of many voyages. 

Mr. Trembath looked a plump and rosy and comfortable man as 
he took his seat at the table, yet there was an expression of sympa- 
thetic anxiety upon his face, and frequently I would catch him quiet- 
ly hearkening, and then he would turn involuntarily to the curtained 
window, so that it was easy to see in what direction his thoughts went. 

“ One had need to build strongly in this part of the country,” said 
he, as we exchanged glances at the sound of a sudden driving roar 
of wind — a squall of wet of almost hurricane power — to which the 
immensely strong fabric of our house trembled as though a heavy 
battery of cannon were being dragged along the open road opposite ; 
“ for, upon my word, Hugh,” said he — we were old friends, and he 
would as often as not give me my Christian name — “if the Dane 
hasn’t begun to drag as yet, there should be good hope of her hold- 
ing on throughout what may still be coming. Surely, for two hours 
now past her ground-tackle must have been very heavily tested.” 


THE ROMANCE OP A MONTH. 


23 


“ My prayer is,” said I, “ that the wind may chop round and blow 
off shore. They’ll have the sense to slip then, I hope, and make for 
the safety of wide waters, with an amidship helm.” 

“ He is his father’s son,” said Mr. Trembath, smiling at my moth- 
er. “An amidship helm! It is as a sailor would put it. You should 
have been a sailor, Tregarthen.” 

My mother gently shook her head, and then for some while we 
ate in silence, the three of us feigning to look as though we thought 
of anything else rather than of the storm that was raging without, 
and of the bark laboring to her cables in the black heart of it. 

On a sudden Mr. Trembath let fall his knife and fork. 

“ Hist !” he cried, half rising from his chair. 

“ The life-boat bell !” I shouted, catching a note or two of the 
summons that came swinging along with the wind. # 

“ Oh, Hugh !” shrieked my mother, clasping her hands. 

“ God keep your dear heart up !” I cried. 

I sprang to her side and kissed her, wrung the outstretched hand 
of Mr. Trembath, and in a minute was plunging into my pea-coat 
and oil-skins. The instant I was out of the house I could hear the 
fast — I may say the furious — tolling of the life-boat bell ; and send- 
ing one glance at the bay, though I seemed almost blinded, and in a 
manner dazed, by the sudden rage of the gale and its burden of spray 
and rain against my face, I could distinguish the wavering, flicker- 
ing yellow light of a flare-up down away in that part of the waters 
where the Twins and the Deadlow Rock would be terribly close at 
hand. But I allowed myself no time to look beyond this hasty 
glance. Mr. Trembath helped me, by thrusting, to pull the house- 
door after me, for of my own strength I never could have done it, 
and then I took to my heels and drove as best I might headlong 
through the living wall of wind, scarcely able to fetch a breath, reel- 
ing to the terrific outflies, yet staggering on. 

The gas -flames in the few lamps along the sea-front were wildly 
dancing, their glazed frames rattled furiously, and I remember notic- 
ing, even in that moment of excitement, that one of the lamp-posts 
which stood a few yards away from our house had been arched by 
the wind as though it were a curve of leaden pipe. The two or three 
shops which faced the sea had their shutters up to save the windows, 
and the blackness of the night seemed to be rather heightened than 
diminished by the dim and leaping glares of the street lights. But 
as I neared the life -boat house my vision was somewhat assisted by 
the whiteness of the foam boiling in thunder a long space out. It 


24 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


flung a dim, elusive, ghostly illumination of its own upon the air. 
I could see the outline of the boat-house against it; the shapes of 
men writhing, as it seemed, upon the slipway ; the figure of the boat 
herself, which had already been eased by her own length out of the 
house ; and I could even discern, by the aid of that wonderful light 
of froth, that most of or all her crew were already in her, and that 
they were stepping her mast, which the roof of the house would not 
suffer her to keep aloft when she was under shelter. 

“ Here’s the cocks’n !” shouted a voice. 

“ All right, men !” I roared ; and with that I rushed through the 
door of the house, and in a bound or two gained the interior of the 
boat and my station on the after-grating. 


CHAPTER III. 

IN THE LIFE-BOAT. 

Now had come the moment when I should need the utmost exer- 
tion of nerve and coolness my nature was equal to. There was a 
large globular lamp alight in the little building — its lustre vaguely 
touched the boat, and helped me to see what was going on and who 
were present. Nevertheless, I shouted: “Are all hands aboard?” 

“ All hands !” came a hurricane response. 

“ All got your belts on ?” I next cried. 

“ All !” was the answer — that is to say, all excepting myself, who, 
having worn a cork jacket once, vowed never again to embark thus 
encumbered. 

“ Are your sails hooked on ready for hoisting ?” I shouted. 

“All ready, sir !”. 

“And your haul-off rope?” 

“ All ready, sir !” 

“ Now, then, my lads — look out, all hands !” 

, There was a moment’s pause : “ Let her go !” I roared. 

A man stood close under the stern, ready to pass his knife through 
the lashing which held the chain to the boat. 

“ Stand by !” he shouted. “All gone !” 

I heard the clank of the chain as it fell, an instant after the boat 
was in motion — slowly at first, but in a few breaths she had gathered 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


25 


the full way that her own weight and the incline gave her, and rushed 
down the slipway, but almost noiselessly, so thickly greased was the 
timber structure, with some hands hoisting the foresail as she sped, 
and others grimly and motionless facing seaward ready to grasp and 
drag upon the haul-rope the moment the craft should be water-borne 
amid the smothering surf. 

The thunderous slatting of the sail as the yard mounted, flinging 
a noise of rending upon the ear as though the cloths were whipping 
the hurricane in rags, the furious roaring and seething and crackling 
and hissing of the mountainous breakers towards which the boat was 
darting — the indescribable yelling of the gale sweeping past our ears 
as the fabric fled down the ways, the instant sight of the torn and 
mangled skies, which seemed dimly revealed somehow by the snow- 
storms of froth coursing along the bay — all this combined into an 
impression which, though it could not have taken longer than a sec- 
ond or two to produce it, dwells upon my mind with so much sharp- 
ness that the whole experience of my life might well have gone to 
dhe manufacture of it. 

We touched the wash of the sea and burst through a cloud of 
foam ; in the beat of a heart the boat was up to our knees in water; 
in another she was freeing herself, and leaping to the height of the 
next boiling acclivity, with my eight men, rigid as iron statues in 
their manner of hauling and in their confrontment of the s6a, drag- 
ging the craft through the surf and into deep water by the off -haul 
rope attached to an anchor some considerable distance ahead of the 
end of the slipway. 

At the moment of the boat smiting the first of the breakers I 
grasped the tiller-ropes, and on the men letting go the off-haul line I 
headed the craft away on the port tack, my intention being to “reach” 
down in the direction of Hurricane Point, so as to be able to fetch 
the bark on a second board. 

One had hardly the wits to notice the scene at the first going off, 
so headlong was the tumble upon the beach, so clamorous the noise 
of the tempest, and so frightfully wild the leapings and launchings 
of the boat amid the heavily broken surface of froth. But now she 
had the weight of the gale in the close-reefed lug that had been 
shown to it, and this steadied her ; and high as the sea ran, yet as 
the water deepened the surge grew regular, and I was able to settle 
down to my job of handling the boat, the worst being over, at least 
so far as our outward excursion went. 

I glanced shoreward and observed the blaze of a port-fire, held out 


26 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


by a man near the boat-house to serve as a signal to the bark that 
help was going to her. The fire was blue, the blaze of it was brill- 
iant, and it lighted up a wide area of the foreshore, throwing out the 
figures of the crowd who watched us, and the outline of the boat- 
house, and flinging a ghastly tint upon every tall upheaval of surf. 
The radiance lay in a sort of circle upon the ebony of the night, with 
what I have named showing in it, as though it was a picture cast by 
a magic lantern upon a black curtain. You could see nothing of the 
lights of the town for it. On either hand of this luminous frame 
the houses went blending into the land, and each way all was sheer 
ink. 

Shortly after this signal of port-fire they sent up a rocket from 
the bark. It was a crimson ball, and it broke like a flash of light- 
ning under the ragged rush of the sky, and then out leaped afresh 
the flames of a flare, or, as you might call it, a bonfire from the deck 
of the vessel — a burning tar-barrel perhaps ; and the light of it dis- 
closed the vision of the ship plunging awfully, again and again veiled 
by storms of crystal which the fathom-high flames of the flare flashed 
into prisms. 

One of our men roared out with an oath : “ She’ll have taken the 
Twins afore we get to her !” and another bellowed : “ Why did they 
wait to drag a mile afore they signalled T But no more was said 
just then. 

Indeed, a man needed to exert the whole strength of his lungs to 
make himself heard. The edge of the wind seemed to clip the loud- 
est shout as it left the lips, as you would sever a rope with a knife. 

Our boat was small for a craft of her character, but a noble, brave, 
nimble fabric, as had been again and again proved ; and every man 
of us, allowing that good usage was given her, had such confidence 
in the Janet that we would not have exchanged her for the largest, 
handsomest, and best-tested boat on the coast of the United King- 
dom. You would have understood her merits had you been with us 
on this night. I was at the yoke-lines ; Pentreath, my second in 
command, sat with his foot against the side, gripping the fore-sheet 
ready to let go in an instant ; the mizzen had been hoisted, and the 
rest of the men, crouching down upon the thwarts, sat staring ahead 
with iron countenances, with never so much as a stoop among them 
to the hardest wash of the surge that might sweep with a wild, hiss- 
ing shriek athwart their sea-helmets and half fill the boat as it came 
bursting in smoke over the weather bow, till, for the space of a wink 
or two, the black gale was as white as a snow-storm overhead. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


27 


As we “ reached ” out the sea grew weightier. Never before had 
I known a greater sea in that bay. The ridges seemed to stand up 
to twice the height of our masts ; every peak boiled, and as we rose 
to the summit of it the boat was smothered in the foam of her own 
churning, and in the headlong, giddy, dazzling rush into which she 
soared, with the whole weight of the gale in her fragment of lug 
bowing her over and sending her, as you might have believed, gun- 
wale under down the long, indigo slant of the underrunning billow. 

We held on, all as mute as death in the boat. From time to time, 
as we rose to the head of a sea, I would take a look in the direction 
of the bark, and catch a glimpse of the windy spark of her flare, or 
of the meteoric sailing of a rocket over her mast-heads. There should 
have been a moon, but the planet was without power to strike the 
faintest illumination into the heaps and rags of vapor which were 
pouring up like smoke over the edge of the raging Atlantic horizon. 
The picture of the parlor I had just left would sometimes arise be- 
fore me ; I figured my mother peering out at the black and throb- 
bing scene of bay ; I imagined good Mr. Trembath at her side utter- 
ing such words of comfort and of hope as occurred to him ; but such 
fancies as these seemed to be beaten away by the breath of the hur- 
ricane as rapidly as they were formed. Should we be in time? If 
the vessel’s cables parted she was doomed. Nay ; if she should con- 
tinue to drag another quarter of an hour, she would be on to the 
Twins, and go to pieces as a child’s house of bricks falls to the touch 
of a hand I 

“ Ready about !” I roared. 

The helm was put down, the fore-sheet eased off, and round came 
the boat nobly on the very pinnacle of a surge, pausing a moment 
as she was there poised, and then plunging into the hollow to rise 
again with her foresail full, and heading some points to windward 
of the vessel we were now steering for. 

Through it we stormed, sea after sea bursting from the life-boat’s 
bow in pallid clouds which the wind sent whirling in shrieks — so ar- 
ticulate was the sound of the slinging spray — into the blackness land- 
ward. Here and there a tiny spark of lamp flickering in the thick 
of the gloom told us the situation of Tintrenale, but there was noth- 
ing more to be seen that way ; the land and the sky above it met in 
a deep, impenetrable dye, towards which, to leeward of us, the tall 
seas went flashing in long yearning coils, throbbing into mere pal- 
lidness when a cable’s length distant. 

They had kindled another flare aboard the bark, or else had plied 


28 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


the old one with fresh fuel ; she was visible by the light of the flames, 
the white of her furled canvas corning and going to the fluctuating 
fires ; and I marked, with a heart that sank in me, the dreadful man- 
ner of her laboring. She was pitching bows under, and rolling, too, 
and by the shining of the signal fire upon her deck offered a most 
wonderful sight, rendered terrible also by a view that we could now 
get of a crowd of men hanging in a lump in her starboard fore-rig- 
ging- 

The second cockswain flashed a port-fire that they might know 
the life-boat was at hand, and we went plunging and sweeping down 
to a point some little distance ahead of the bark, the crowd of us ir- 
radiated by the stream of emerald-green flame. 

“All ready with the anchor, lads?” I shouted, 
i “ All ready, sir !” was the answer. 

“Down foresail !” and as I gave this order I put the helm down 
and brought the boat-head to wind about thirty fathoms ahead of 
the ship. 

“ Let go the anchor !” 

“ Unstep the foremast !” bawled the second cockswain ; and while 
this was doing, he and another swiftly lifted the mizzen-mast out of 
its bearings and laid it along. 

“Veer away cable handsomely!” I shouted; and pitching and 
foaming, now dropping into a hollow that seemed fifty feet deep, 
now appearing to scale a surge that lifted the boat’s bow almost dead 
on end over her stern — all in a fashion to make the brain of the 
stoutest and most experienced among us reel again — we dropped 
alongside. 

In what followed there was so much confusion, so much uproar, 
such distraction of shouts in foreign and unintelligible accents, such 
a terrible washing of seas, such bewilderment born of the darkness, 
of the complicated demands upon the attention through need of 
keeping the boat clear of the huge chopping bows of the bark, through 
bawling to the men in the rigging and receiving answers which we 
could not understand, that this passage of my singular adventure 
could scarcely be less vague to me in memory than, instead of hav- 
ing been an actor in it, I had read it in a book. 

There were six or seven men, as well as I could make out, clus- 
tered in the fore-rigging. I believed I could see others in the miz- 
zen-shrouds. This being my notion, my consuming anxiety was to 
drop the boat down on the quarter as swiftly as possible, for it was 
not only that the Twins were within a cable’s range astern, with the 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


29 


fury of the foam there malcing a kind of shining upon the water 
that might have passed for moonlight : such was the volume and 
height of the sea roaring between the laboring ship and our boat 
that at every toss of the little fabric, at every ponderous lean-down 
of the great groaning black hull towering over us, we stood to be 
staved. 

The fellows in the fore-rigging seemed to be stupefied. We all 
of us yelled, “Jump ! jump ! Watch as she rises, and jump, for God’s 
sake !” meanwhile keeping a turn of the cable so as to hold the boat 
abreast of them. It seemed an eternity before they understood, and 
yet a minute had not passed since we dropped down, when a cry 
broke from them, and first one jumped and then another, and then 
the rest of them sprang, and there they were lying in a huddle in 
the bottom of the boat, one or two of them groaning dreadfully, as 
though from broken limbs, or worse injuries still, all of them mo- 
tionless as they lay when they jumped, like folk nearly dead of ter- 
ror and cold and pain. 

“ Veer out now, my lads ! veer out !” I cried ; “ handsomely, that 
we may get smartly under the mizzen-shrouds.” 

“ There’s nobody there, sir !” roared one of my men. 

No ! I looked, and found it had been an illusion of my sight, due 
to the flame of the flare that was burning fiercely on the main- 
deck. 

“Are you all here?” I cried, addressing the dusky huddle of men 
at the bottom of the boat. 

Something was said, but the gale deafened me, and I could catch 
no meaning, no syllables, indeed, in the answer. 

“They’ll all be here, sir,” shouted one of my crew; “the port 
davits are empty, and some ’ll have left in the boat.” 

A great sea swung us up at that instant flush with the level of the 
bulwark-rails, with a heel of the bark, that disclosed her decks bare 
to the bright fires of the signal. 

“ They must be all here !” I cried ; “ but look well. Is there one 
among you who can catch any signs of a living man on board ?” 

They waited for the next upheaval of sea, and then rose a shout : 
“ They’re all here, sir, you’ll find.” 

“ Heave ahead, then, my lads !” by which I meant that they should 
haul upon the cable to drag the boat clear of the dreadful, crushing, 
shearing chop of the overhanging bows of the bark. 

At that instant a head showed over the rail a little abaft the fore- 
shrouds, and the clear, piercing voice of a boy cried, with as good 


30 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


an English accent as I myself have, “ My father is ill and helpless 
in the cabin. Do not leave us !” 

“ No, no, we’ll not leave you,” I instantly shouted in return, send- 
ing my voice fair to the lad from the height of a sea that pretty well 
brought his and my head on a level. “ How many are there of you ?” 

“ Two,” was the answer. 

I had to wait for the boat to slide up to the summit of the next 
surge ere I could call out again. The black yawns between us and 
the bark might have passed for valleys looked at from a hill-side, so 
'horribly hollow and deep were they ; they were pale, and yet dusky, 
too, with sheets of foam ; a soul-confounding noise of thunderous 
washing and seething rose up from them. When we were in one of 
these hollows the great mass of the dark fabric of the bark seemed 
to tower fifty feet above us, and we lay becalmed, hanging, while 
you might have counted five, in absolute stagnation, with the yell of 
the wind sweeping over our heads as though we were in the heart of 
a pit. 

“ Cannot your father help himself at all P I bawled to the boy. 

“ He cannot stir, he must be lifted !” he answered in a shriek, for 
his high, clear, piercing cry thus sounded. 

“ By Heaven, then, lads,” I bawled to my men, “ there’s no time 
to.be lost! We must bundle the poor fellow over somehow, and 
help the lad. Nothing will have been done if we leave them behind 
us. Watch your chance and follow me, three of you !” 

At the instant of saying this I made a spring from off the height 
of the gratings on which I stood, and got into the fore-chains, the 
boat then being on the level of that platform ; and as actively as a 
cat, for few young fellows had nimbler limbs, I scrambled over the 
bulwark on to the deck, just in time to escape a huge fold of rush- 
ing water that foamed sheer through the chains with a spite and 
weight that must instantly have settled my business for me. 

I was in the act of running along the deck to where the lad stood 
— that is to say, a little forward of the gangway, not doubting that 
the others of my crew whom I had called upon were following with 
as much alertness as I had exhibited, when I felt a shock as of a 
thump pass through the bark. 

“ She has struck !” thought I. 

But hardly was I sensible of this tremor through the vessel when 
there arose a wild and dreadful cry from alongside. Heavenly God ! 
how am I to describe that shocking noise of human distress ? I fled 
to the rail and looked over ; it was all boiling water under me, with 


/ made a spring, and got into the fore-chains 






THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


31 


just a sight of the black line of the gunwale or of the keel of the 
life-boat ; but there was such a raging of foam, such a thickness of 
seething yeast smoking into the hurricane as though some volcanic 
eruption had happened right under the bark, filling the air with 
steam, that there was nothing whatever to be seen saving just that 
dark glance of keel or gunwale, as I have said, which, however, van- 
ished as I looked in the depth of the hissing, spumy smother. I 
knew by this that the life-boat must have been staved and filled by 
a sudden fling of her against the massive sides of the bark ; for she 
was a self-righting craft, and though she might have thrown every 
soul in her out as she rolled over, yet she would have rose buoyant 
again, emptying herself as she leaped to the surge, and there she 
would have been alongside, without a living creature in her if you 
will, but a good boat, and riding stoutly to her cable. But she had 
been stove, and now she was gone ! 

The blazing tar-barrel on the main-deck enabled me to see my 
way to rush aft. I cried to the lad as I sped, “ The boat is staved ; 
all hands of her are overboard and drowning ! Heave ropes’ ends 
over the side ! fling life-buoys !” And thus shouting, scarcely know- 
ing, indeed, what I called out, so confounded was I, so shocked, so 
horrified, so heart-broken, I may say, by the suddenness and the fear- 
fulness of this disaster, I reached the quarter of the bark and over- 
hung it ; but I could see nothing. The cloudy boiling rose and fell, 
and with every mighty drop of the great square counter of the bark 
the sea swept in a roar from either hand of her with a cataractal 
fury that would rush whatever was afloat in it dozens of fathoms 
distant at every scend. Here and there now I believe I could distin- 
guish some small black object, but the nearer pallid waters dimmed 
into a blackness at a little distance, and if those dark points which 
I observed were the heads of swimmers, then such was the headlong 
race of the surge they were swept into the throbbing dusk ere I could 
make sure of them. 

I stood as one paralyzed from head to foot. My inability to be 
of the least service to my poor comrades and the unhappy Danes 
caused me to feel as though the very heart in me had ceased to beat. 
The young fellow came to my side. 

“ What is to be done ?” he cried. 

“ Nothing 1” I answered, in a passion of grief. “ What can be 
done? God grant that many of them will reach the shore! The 
hurl of the sea is landward, and their life-belts Will float them. But 
your people are doomed.” 


32 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ And so are we !” he exclaimed, shrilly, yet without perceptible 
terror, with nothing worse than wild excitement in his accents : 
“ there are rocks directly under our stern. Are you a sailor ?” 

“No !” 

“ O, du gode Gud ! what is to be done ?” cried the lad. 

I cast my eyes despairingly around. The tar-barrel was still burn> 
ing bravely upon the deck, defying the ceaseless sweeping of spray 
from over the bows ; the windy, unearthly light tinctured the ship 
with its sickly sallow hue to the height of her lower yards, and the 
whole ghastly body of her was to be seen as she rolled and plunged 
under a sky that was the blacker for the light of the distress-flare, 
and upon a sea whose vast spreads of creaning brows would again 
and again come charging along to the very height of the bulwark- 
rail. 

In the midst of this pause on my part, and while every instinct 
of self-preservation in me was blindly flinging itself, so to speak, 
against the black and horrible situation that imprisoned me, and 
while I was hopelessly endeavoring to consider what was to be done 
to save the young fellow alongside of me from destruction — for, as 
to his father, it was impossible to extend my sympathies at such a 
moment to one whom I had not seen, who did not appeal to me, as 
it were, in form and voice for succor — I say, in the midst of this 
pause of hopeless deliberation, the roar of the hurricane ceased on a 
sudden. Nothing more, I was sure, was signified by this than a lull, 
to be followed by some fierce chop round, or by the continuance of 
the westerly tempest with a bitterer spite in the renewed rush of it. 
The lull may have lasted ten or fifteen seconds. In that time I do 
not know that there was a breath of air to be felt outside the violent 
eddyings and draughts occasioned by the sickening motions of the 
bark. I looked up at the sky, and spied the leanest phantom of a 
star that glimmered for the space of a single swing of a pendulum, 
and then vanished behind a rushing roll of vapor of a midnight hue, 
winging with incredible velocity from the land. 

So insupportable was the movement of the deck that I was forced 
to support myself by a belaying-pin, or I must have been thrown. 
My companion clung to a similar pin close beside me. The thunder 
of running and colliding waters rose into that magical hush of tem- 
pest ; I could hear the booming of the surf as far as Hurricane Point, 
and the caldron -like noises of the waters round about the rocks 
astern of us. 

“ Has the storm ceased ?” cried my companion. “ Oh, beloved 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


33 


father, we may be spared yet !” he added, extending his disengaged 
hand towards the deck-house as he apostrophized the helpless man 
who lay there. 

Amazed as I was by this instant cessation of the gale, I could yet 
find mind enough to be struck by my companion’s manner, by his 
words — and now, I may say, by his voice also. I was about to ad- 
dress him ; but, as my lips parted, there was a vivid flash of light- 
ning that threw out the whole scene of bay, cliff, foreshore, and town, 
with the line of the horizon seaward, in a dazzle of violet : a crash 
of thunder followed ; but before its ear-splitting reverberation had 
ceased the echoes of it were drowned in the bellowing of the gale 
coming directly off the land. 

What is there in words to express the fury of this outfly ? It met 
the heave of the landward-running seas, and swept them into smoke, 
and the air grew as white and thick with spume as though a heavy 
snow-storm were blowing horizontally along. It took the bark and 
swung her ; her laboring was so prodigious as she was thrust by this 
fresh hurricane broadside round to the surges that I imagined every 
second she would founder under my feet. I felt a shock ; my com- 
panion cried, “ One of the cables has parted !” A moment later I 
felt the same indescribable tremble running through the planks on 
which we stood. 

“ Is that the other cable gone, do you think ?” I shouted. 

“ There is a leadline over the side,” he cried ; “ it will tell us if 
we are adrift.” 

I followed him to near the mizzen-rigging ; neither of us durst 
let go with one hand until we had a grip of something else with the 
other ; it was now not only the weight of the wind that would have 
laid us prone and pinned us to the deck ; a pyramidal sea had sprung 
up as though by enchantment, and each apex as it soared about the 
bows and sides was blown inboard in very avalanches of water, 
which with each violent roll of the vessel poured in a solid body to 
the rail, one side or the other, again and again, to the height of our 
waist. 

My companion extended his hand over the bulwarks, and cried 
out, “Here is the lead-line. It stretches towards the bows. Oh, 
sir, we are adrift ! we are blowing out to sea !” 

I put my hand over and grasped the line, and instantly knew by 
the angle of it that the lad was right. By no other means would he 
have been able to get at the truth. The weight of lead, by resting 
on the bottom, immediately told if the bark was dragging. All 
3 


34 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


around was white water ; the blackness of the night drooped to the 
very spit of the brine ; not a light was to be perceived, not the vaguest 
outline of cliff ; and the whole scene of darkness was the more be- 
wildering for the throb of the near yeast upon the eyesight. 

“ Is your binnacle light burniug?” I cried. 

The lad answered, “ Yes.” 

“ Then,” I shouted, “ we must find out the quarter the gale has 
shifted into, and get her stern on to it, and clear Hurricane Point* 
if Almighty God will permit. There may be safety in the open ; 
there is none here.” 

With the utmost labor and distress we made our way aft. The 
flare had been extinguished by the heavy falls of water, and it was 
worse than walking blindfolded. The binnacle light was burning — 
this was, indeed, to be expected. The bark was plunging directly 
head to wind, and a glance at the card enabled me to know that the 
gale was blowing almost due east, having shifted, as these cyclonic 
ragings often do, right into the quarter opposite whence it had come. 

“ We must endeavor to get her before it,” I cried ; “ but I am no 
sailor. There may come another shift, and we ought to clear the 
land while the hurricane holds as it does. What is to be done ?” 

“ Will she pay off if the helm is put hard over ?” he answered. 
“ Let us try it !” 

He seized the spokes on one side, I put my shoulder to the wheel 
on the other, and thus we jammed and secured the helm into the 
posture called by sailors “ hard-a-starboard.” She fell off, indeed — 
into the trough, and there she lay, amid such a diabolical play of 
water, such lashings of seas on both sides, as it is not in mortal pen 
to portray! 

Had we been in the open ocean, a better attitude than the bark 
herself had taken up we could not have wished for. She was, in- 
deed, hove to, as the sea-expression is, giving something of her bow 
to the wind, and was in that posture which the ship-master will put 
his vessel into in such a tempest as was now blowing. But, unhap- 
pily, the land was on either hand of us, and though our drift might 
be straight out to sea, I could not be sure that it was so. The tide 
would be making to the west and north ; the coils and pyramids and 
leapings of surge had also a sort of yearning and leaning towards 
north-west, as if in sympathy with the tide ; the deadly terrace of 
Hurricane Point lay that way ; and so the leaving of the bark in the 
trough of the sea might come, indeed, to cost us our lives, which 
had only just been spared by the shift in the storm of wind! 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


35 


“ She does not answer the helm,” I cried to my young companion. 

“ Her head will pay off,” he answered, “ if we can manage to hoist 
a fragment of sail forward. It must be done, sir. Will you help 
me?” 

“God knows I will do anything!” I cried. “Show me what is 
to be done. We must save our lives if we can. There may be a 
chance out on the ocean for us.” 

Without another word he went forward, and I followed him. We 
had to pause often to preserve ourselves from being floated off our 
feet. The flood, which washed white between the rails, lifted the 
rigging off the pins and sent the ropes snaking about the decks, and 
our movements were as much hampered as though we fought our 
way through a jungle. The foam all about us, outside and inboard, 
put a wild, cold glimmer into the air, which enabled us to distinguish 
Outlines. In fact, at moments the whole shape of the bark, from 
her bulwarks to some distance up her masts, would show like a sketch 
in ink upon white paper as she leaned off the slant of the sea and 
painted her figure upon the hill of froth thundering away from her 
on the lee side. 

My companion paused for a moment or two under the shelter of 
the caboose or galley to tell me what he meant to do. We then 
crawled on to the forecastle, and he bade me hold by a rope which 
he put into my hand, and await his return. I watched him creep 
into the “ eyes ” of the vessel and get upon the bowsprit, but after 
that I lost sight of him, for the seas smoked so fiercely all about the 
ship’s head — to every plunge of her bows there rose so shrouding a 
thickness of foam — that the air was a fog of crystals where the lad 
was, and had he gone overboard he could not have vanished more 
utterly from my sight. Indeed, I could not tell whether he was gone 
or not, and a feeling of horror possessed me when I thought of being 
left alone in the vessel with a sick and useless man lying somewhere 
aft, and with the rage and darkness of the dreaful storm around me, 
the chance of striking upon Hurricane Point, and no better hope at 
the best than what was to be got out of thinking of the midnight 
breast of the storming Atlantic. 

After a few minutes there was the noise of the rattling of canvas 
resembling a volley of small shot fired off the bows. The figure of 
the lad came from the bowsprit out of a burst of spray that soared 
in steam into the wind. 

“ Only a fragment must be hoisted !” he exclaimed, with his mouth 
at my ear. “ Pull with me !” 


36 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


I put my weight' upon the rope, and together we rose a few feet 
of the sail upon the stay — it was the foretop-mast-stay sail, as I after- 
wards discovered. 

“ Enough !” cried my companion, in his clear, penetrating voice ; 
“if it will but hold till the vessel pays off, all will be well. We dare 
not ask for more.” 

He secured the rope we had dragged upon to a pin, and I followed 
him aft, finding leisure even in that time of distress and horror to 
wonder at the coolness, the intrepidity of soul that was expressed in 
his clear, unfaltering speech, in the keen judgment and instant reso- 
lution of a lad whose age, as I might gather from his voice, could 
scarcely exceed fifteen or sixteen years. Between us we seized the 
wheel afresh, one on either side of it, and waited. But we were not 
to be kept long in suspense. Indeed, even before we had grasped 
the helm the bark was paying off. The rag of canvas held nobly, 
and to the impulse of it the big bows of the vessel rounded away 
from the gale, and in a few minutes she was dead before it, pitching 
furiously, with the sea snapping and foaming to her taffrail and 
quarters. 

But the thickness of her yards, with the canvas rolled up on them, 
the thickness of the masts, too, the spread of the tops, the compli- 
cated gear of shroud, backstay, and running-rigging, all offered re- 
sistance enough to the dark and living gale that was bellowing right 
over the stern to put something of the speed of an arrow into the 
keel of the fabric. Through it she madly raced, with pallid clouds 
blowing about her bows, and white peaks hissing along her sides, 
and a wake of snow under her counter heaving to half the height of 
the mizzen-mast with the hurl of the seas, and a ceaseless blowing of 
froth over our heads as the lad and I stood together grasping the 
wheel, steering the vessel into the darkness of the great Atlantic 
Ocean, with our eyes upon the compass-card, whose illuminated disk 
showed the course on which we were being flashed forward by the 
storm to be a trifle south of west. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


37 


CHAPTER IV. 

HELGA NIELSEN. 

For fall twenty minutes tbe lad and I clung to the helm without 
exchanging a word. The speed of the driven vessel rendered her 
motion comparatively easy, after the intolerable lurching and roll- 
ing and plunging of her as she lay at anchor or in the trough. She 
was swept onward with such velocity that I had little or no fear of 
her taking in the seas over her stern, and she steered well, with but 
little wildness in the swerving of her bows, as was to be seen by the 
comparative regularity of the oscillation of the compass-card. 

This running before the tempest, of course, diminished the vol- 
ume and power of it, so far, I mean, as our own sensations were 
concerned ; but the sight of the sea, as much of it at least as was vis- 
ible, coupled with the thunder of the wind up aloft in the sky, and 
the prodigious crying and shrieking and shrilling of it in the rig- 
ging, was warrant enough that were we to heave the bark to we 
should find the hurricane harder now than it had been at any other 
time since it first came on to blow. Yet our racing before it, as I 
have said, seemed somewhat to lull it, and we could converse without 
having to cry out, though for twenty minutes we stood mute as stat- 
ues waiting and watching. 

At last my companion said to me, “Have we passed that point 
which you spoke of, do you think ?” 

“Oh yes,” I answered. “It would not be above two miles dis- 
tant from the point where we broke adrift. Our speed cannot have 
been less than eight or nine knots. I should say Hurricane Point is 
a full mile away, down on the quarter there.” 

“ I fear that we shall find the sea,” said he, “grow terribly heavy 
as we advance.” 

“ Yes,” said I, “ but what is to be done? There is nothing for it 
but to advance. Suppose such another shift of wind as has just 
happened — what then? We should have a line of deadly shore 
right under our lee. Ho, we must hold on as we are.” 

“ There are but two of us !” cried he ; “ my father cannot count. 
What are we to do ? We cannot work this big ship !” 


38 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


‘ The weather may break,” said I ; “it is surely too fierce to last. 
What can we hope for but to be rescued or assisted by some passing 
vessel ? Is this ship stanch f” 

“ Yes, she is a strong ship,” he replied. “ She is about six years 
old. My father is her owner. I wish I could go to him,” he added ; 
“ he will be dying to learn what has happened and what is being 
done, and it is past the time for his medicine, and he will be want- 
ing his supper !” 

I tried to catch a view of him as he spoke these words, but the 
haze of the binnacle lamp did not reach to his face, and it was as 
black as the face of the sky itself out of that sheen. What he had 
said had a girlish note in it that I could not reconcile with his dress, 
with his seafaring alertness, with his spirited behavior, his nimble 
crawling out upon the bowsprit, and his perception of what was to 
be done under conditions which might well have clouded the wits of 
the oldest and most audacious sailor. 

“ Pray go and see your father,” said I. “ I believe I can keep this 
helm amidships without help.” And, indeed, if I could not have 
steered the bark alone, I do not know that such assistance as he 
could offer would have suffered me to control her. He seemed but 
a slender lad — so far, at least, as I had been able to judge from the 
view I got when the flare was burning — very quick, but without such 
strength as I should have looked for in a young seaman, as I could 
tell whenever the wheel had to be put up or down. 

He let go the spokes, and stood apart for a minute or two, as 
though to judge whether I could manage without him ; then said 
he, “I will return quickly,” and with that took a step and vanished 
in the blackness forward of the binnacle stand. 

My mind dwelt for a moment upon him, upon the clearness and 
purity of his voice, upon a something in his speech which I could 
not define, and which puzzled me; upon his words, which were as 
good English as one could hope to hear at home, albeit there was a 
certain sharpness and incisiveness — perhaps I might say a little of 
harshness — in his accentuation that might suggest him a foreigner 
to an English ear, though, as I then supposed, it was more likely than 
not this quality arose from the excitement and dismay and distress 
which worked in him as in me. 

But he speedily ceased to engage my thoughts. What could I 
dwell upon but the situation in which I found myself — the specta- 
cle of the black outline of bark painting herself upon the volumes 
of white water she hove up around her as she rushed forward pitch- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


39 


ing bows under, her rigging echoing with unearthly cries, as if the 
dark waving mass of spar and gear aloft were crowded with tor- 
mented souls wailing and howling and shrieking dismally ? I re- 
called my mother’s dream ; I believed I was acting in some dreadful 
nightmare of my own slumbers ; all had happened so suddenly — so 
much of emotion, of wild excitement, of agitation, and, I may say, 
horror, had been packed into the slender space of time between the 
capsizal of the life-boat and this rushing out of the bay that, now I 
had a little leisure to bend my mind to contemplation of the reality, 
I could not believe in it as an actual thing. I was dazed; my hear- 
ing was stunned by the ceaseless roar of wind and seas. The Janet 
stove and sunk ! All my lion-hearted men drowned perhaps ! The 
poor Danes, for whom they had forfeited their lives, long ago 
corpses! Would not this break my mother’s heart? Would there 
be a survivor to tell her that when I was last seen I was aboard the 
bark? Once again I figured the little parlor I had quitted but a 
few hours since: I pictured my mother sitting by the fire, waiting 
and listening, the long night, the bitter anguish of suspense ! — it 
was lucky for me that the obligation of having to watch and steer 
the vessel served as a constant intrusion upon my mind at this time, 
for could I have been able to sit down aud surrender myself wholly 
to my mood, God best knows how it must have gone with me. 

The lad was about ten minutes absent. I found him alongside 
the wheel without having witnessed his approach. He came out of 
the darkness as a spirit might shape itself, and I did not know that 
he was near me until he spoke. 

“ My father says that our safety lies in heading into the open sea, 
to obtain what you call a wide offing,” said he. 

“ What does he advise ?” I asked. 

“ 1 We must continue to run,’ he says,” answered the lad ; meaning 
by run that we should keep the bark before the wind. “ ‘ When 
the coast is far astern we must endeavor to heave to,’ so he coun- 
sels. I told him we are but two. He answered, ‘ it may be 
done.’ ” 

“ I wish he were able to leave his cabin and take charge,” said I. 
“ What is his complaint ?” 

“ He was seized shortly after leaving Cuxhaven with rheumatism 
in the knees,” he answered ; “ he cannot stand, cannot, indeed, stir 
either leg.” 

“Why did he not get himself conveyed ashore for treatment?” 

“He hoped to get better. We were to call at Swansea before 


40 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


proceeding to Porto Allegre, and if he had found himself still ill 
when he arrived there, it was his intention to procure another cap- 
tain for the Anine and remain at Swansea with me until he was able 
to return home.” 

“Who had charge of the bark when she brought up in the 
bay ?” I inquired, finding a sort of relief in asking these questions, 
and, indeed, in having somebody to converse with, for even my ten 
minutes of loneliness at the helm of that pitching and foaming ves- 
sel had depressed me to the very core of my soul. 

“ The carpenter, who acted as second mate.” 

“ Yes, I recollect ; some of our boatmen brought the news. Your 
chief mate broke his leg and was sent ashore. But did your father 
consent to the Anine dropping anchor in so perilous a bay as ours — 
perilous, I mean, considering the weather at the time ?” 

“He was at the mercy of the man Damm — the carpenter, I 
mean,” he answered. “ The crew had refused to keep the sea ; they 
said a tempest was coming, and that shelter must be sought before 
the wind came, and the carpenter steered the bark for the first 
haven he fell in with, which happened to be your bay. Our crew 
were not good men ; they were grumbling much, as your English 
word is, from the hour of our leaving Cuxhaven.” 

“ But, surely,” said I, “ the poor fellows who sprang out of the 
fore-rigging could not have formed the whole of the crew of a ship 
of this burden ! 

“ No,” he answered ; “ the carpenter and five men got away in 
one of the boats when they found that the bark was dragging her 
anchors. They lowered one boat, which filled and was knocked to 
pieces, and the wreck of it, I dare say, is still swinging at the tackles. 
They lowered the other boat, and went away in her.” 

“ Did they reach the shore ?” 

“ I do not know,” said he. 

“ They must have been a bad lot,” said I ; “ those who escaped in 
the boat and those who hung in the shrouds, to leave your helpless 
father to his fate.” 

“ Oh ! a bad lot, a wicked lot !” he cried. They were not Danes,” 
he added. “ Danish sailors would not have acted as those men did.” 

“ Are you a Dane ?” I asked. 

“ My father is,” he answered. “ I am as much English as Danish. 
My mother was an Englishwoman.” 

“ I should have believed you wholly English,” said I. “Are you 
a sailor?” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


41 


He answered no. I was about to speak, when he exclaimed, “ I 
am a girl !” 

Secretly for some time I had supposed this, and yet I was hardly 
less astonished had I been without previous suspicion. 

“A girl /” I cried, sending my sight groping over her figure ; but 
to no purpose. She was absolutely indistinguishable saving her arms, 
which were dimly touched by the haze of the binnacle light as they 
lay upon the spokes of the wheel. 

“ It is my whim to dress as a boy on board ship !” she exclaimed, 
with no stammer of embarrassment that I could catch in her clear 
delivery, that penetrated to my ear without loss of a syllable through 
the heavy storming of the gale, flashing with the fury of a whirl- 
wind off the brows of the seas which rushed at us, as the bark’s 
counter soared into the whole weight and eye of the tempest. 

So far had we conversed ; but at this moment a great surge took 
the bark and swung her up in so long, so dizzy, and sickening an 
upheaval, followed by so wild a fall into the frothing hollow at its 
base, that speech was silenced in me, and I could think of nothing 
else but the mountainous billows now running. Indeed, as my com- 
panion had predicted, the farther we drew out from the land the 
heavier we found the sea. The play of the ocean, indeed, out here 
was rendered fierce beyond words by the dual character of the tem- 
pest ; for the seas which had been set racing out of the west had not 
yet been conquered by the violence of the new gale and by the hurl 
of the liquid hills out of the east ; and the bark was now laboring 
in the same sort of pyramidal sea as had run in the bay, saving that 
here the whole power of the great Atlantic was in each billow, and 
the fight between the contending waters was as a combat of mighty 
giants. • 

The decks were full of water ; at frequent intervals the brow of the 
sea rushing past us, swift as was our own speed upon its careering 
back, would arch over the rail and tumble aboard in a heavy fall of 
water, and the smoke of it would rise from the planks as though the 
bark were on fire, and make the blackness forward of the main- 
mast hoary. I sought in vain for the least break in the dark ceiling 
of the sky. Will the vessel be able to keep afloat ? I was now all 
the time asking myself. Is it possible for any structure put together 
by human hands to outlive such a night of fury as this? As I have 
said, I was no sailor, yet my longshore training gave me very read- 
ily to know that the best, if not the only, chance for our lives was 
to get the bark hove to, and leave her to breast the seas and live 


42 


M7 DANISH SWEETHEART: 


the weather out as she could with her helm lashed, and, perhaps, 
some bit of tarpaulin in the weather rigging, to keep her head up. 
But this that was to be easily wished was inexpressibly perilous to 
attempt or achieve, for, in bringing the vessel to, it was as likely as 
not we should founder out of hand. A single sea might be enough 
to do our business ; and, failing that, there was the almost certain 
prospect of the decks being swept, of every erection from the taff- 
rail to the bows being carried away, ourselves included, of a score of 
leaks being started by a single blow, and, even if the girl and I man- 
aged to hold on, of the bark foundering under our feet. 

Thus we rushed onward, very literally, indeed, scudding under 
bare poles, as it is called; and for a long while we had neither 
of us a word to exchange, so present was calamity, so near was 
death, so dreadful were the thunderous sounds of the night, so en- 
grossing our business of keeping the flying fabric dead before the 
seas. 

I pulled out my watch and held it hastily to the binnacle lamp, 
and found the hour exactly one. The girl asked me the time. This 
was the first word that had passed between us for a long while. I 
replied, and she said, in a voice that indicated extraordinary spirit, 
but that, nevertheless, sounded languishingly after her earlier utter- 
ance, “Now that it is past midnight; the gale may break surely 
such fierce weather cannot last for many hours !” 

“ I wish you would go,” said I, “ and get some refreshment for 
yourself, and lie down for a while. I believe I can manage single- 
handed to keep the vessel before it.” 

“ If I lie down, it would not be to sleep,” she answered ; “ but if 
you think I can be spared from the wheel for a few minutes, I will 
obtain some refreshment for us both, and I should also like to see 
how my father does.” 

I answered that if the helm was to prove too heavy for me, her 
help might hardly save me from being obliged to let go. 

“ Do not believe this,” she exclaimed, “ because you now know 
that I am a girl !” 

“I have had no heart for wonderment as yet,” said I; “otherwise 
my astonishment and admiration would reassure you, if you suppose 
I doubt your strength and capacity, now that I know you to be a 
girl. A little refreshment will help us both,” and I was going to 
advise her to seize the opportunity to attire herself in dry clothes, 
for I was in oil-skins, whereas, so far as I was able to gather, her 
dress was a pea-jacket and a cloth cap, and I knew that again and 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


43 


again she had been soaked to the skin, and that the wind pouring 
on her would be chilling her to her very heart. But even amid such 
a time as this I was sensible of a diffidence in naming what was in 
my mind, and held my peace. 

She lqft the wheel, and I stood steering the bark single-handed, 
with my eyes fixed upon the illuminated compass-card, while I no- 
ticed that the course the vessel was taking, which always held her 
dead before the gale, was now above a point, nay, perhaps two points, 
to the southward of west; whence it was clear the hurricane was veer- 
ing northwardly. 

Whether it was because this small shift in the wind still found the 
colliding seas travelling east and west, or that some heavy surge sweep- 
ing its volume along the starboard bow caused the bark to “yaw” 
widely, as it is termed, and so brought a great weight of billow against 
the rudder — be the cause what it will — while my eye was rooted 
upon the card, the stern of the vessel was, on a sudden, run up with 
the velocity of a balloon from whose car all the ballast has been 
thrown, the spokes were wrenched from my hand as they revolved 
like the driving-wheel of a locomotive in full career, and I was sent 
spinning against the bulwark, from which I dropped upon my knees, 
and so rolled over, stunned. 

For all I could tell I might have lain five minutes or five hours 
without my senses. I believe I was brought to by the washing 
over me of the water that lay in that lee part of the deck into which 
I had been flung. I sat erect, but for a long while was unable to 
collect my mind, so bewildered were my brains by the fall and so 
confounded besides by the uproar round and about. I then made 
out the figure, as I took it, of the girl, standing at the wheel, and 
got on to my legs, and after feeling over myself, so to speak, to make 
sure that all my bones were sound, I staggered, or rather clawed, my 
way up to the wheel — for the bark seemed now to me to be upon 
her beam ends, and rolling with dreadful wildness, and there were 
times when the foaming waters rushed inboard over the rail which 
she submerged to leeward. 

The girl cried out when she spied me — I had to draw close in- 
deed to be seen ; it was as black down where I was thrown as the 
inside of the vessel’s hold. She cried out, I say, uttering some Dan- 
ish exclamation, and then exclaimed : 

“ Oh ! I feared you were lost; I feared that you had been thrown 
overboard ; I ought not to have left you alone at the wheel. Tell 
me if you are hurt ?” 


44 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“No, I am uninjured,” I replied. “But what has become of the 
ship ? Iam only just recovered from my swoon.” 

“ Oh I” she cried, “ she has taken up the very situation you wished 
for. She has hove herself to. She came broadside to the sea after 
you were flung from the wheel. We are mercifully watched over. 
We dared not of ourselves have brought her to the wind.” 

All my senses were now active in me once more, and I could judge 
for myself. It was as the girl had said. The bark had fallen into 
the trough, had taken up a position for herself, and was shouldering 
the heavy western surge with her bow, coming to and falling off in 
rhythmic sweep. Clouds of froth repeatedly broke over her forecastle, 
but she seemed, while I then watched her, to rise buoyant to each 
black curl of billow as it took her amidships. 

“ Will you help me to lash the helm ?” cried the girl. “ It is all 
that the Anine will need, I am sure. She will be able to fight the 
storm alone if we can secure the wheel.” 

Between us, we drove the helm “ hard-a-lee,” to use the sea term 
— -for which, indeed, it is impossible to find an equivalent, though 
I trust to be as sparing in this language as the obligation of expla- 
nation will permit — and then, by means of ropes wound round the 
spokes, so bound the wheel as to cripple all play in it. 

“ Will she lie up to the wind, do you think,” said I, “ without 
some square of canvas abaft here to keep her head to it ?” 

“ I have been watching her. I believe she will do very well,” the 
girl answered. “ I feared that that little head of sail we hoisted in 
the bay would blow her bows round, and by this not happening, I 
suppose that sail is in rags. One would not have heard it split in 
such a thunder of wind as this.” 

“ Have you seen your father ?” 

“Yes. I was talking to him when you were thrown from the 
wheel. I knew what had happened by the behavior of the vessel. 
I ran out, and feared you were lost.” 

“ What does he counsel ?” 

“ Oh ! it is still his wish that we should go on putting plenty of 
sea between us and the land. But do you notice that the gale has 
gone somewhat into the north ? He will be glad to hear it, now 
that we are no longer scudding. Our drift should put us well clear 
of the Land’s End, and, indeed, I dare say now we are being thrust 
away at several miles in the hour from the coast. He is very anx- 
ious to know if the Anine has taken in water, and wishes me to sound 
the well. I fear I shall not be able to do this alone.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


45 


“Why should you?” cried I. “You shall do nothing alone! I 
cannot credit that you are a girl ! Such spirit — such courage — 
such knowledge of a calling the very last in the wide world that wom- 
en are likely to understand ! Pray, let me ask your name ?” 

“ Helga Nielsen,” she answered. “ My father is Peter Nielsen — 
Captain Peter Nielsen,” she repeated. “And your name ?” 

“ Hugh Tregarthen,” said I. 

“It is sad that you should be here,” said she, “ brought away from 
your home, suffering all this hardship and peril ! You came to save 
our lives. God will bless you, sir. I pray that the good God may 
protect and restore you to those you love.” 

Spite of the roar of the wind, and the ceaseless crashing and seeth- 
ing sound of the smiting and colliding seas, I could catch the falter 
of emotion in her voice as she pronounced these words ; but then, as 
you will suppose, we were close together, standing shoulder to shoul- 
der against the binnacle, while we exchanged these sentences. 

“ There is refreshment in the cabin,” said she, after a pause of a 
moment or two. “ You need support. This has been a severe night 
of work for you, sir, from the hour of your putting off to us in the 
life-boat.” 

I found myself smiling at the motherly tenderness conveyed in 
the tone of her voice. I longed to have a clear view of her, for it 
was still like talking in a pitch-dark room ; the binnacle lamp needed 
trimming ; its light was feeble, and the sky lay horribly black over 
the ocean that was raging, ghastly with pallid glances of sheets of 
foam under it. 

“ Let us first sound the well, if possible,” said I ; “ for our lives’ 
sake we ought to find out what is happening below.” 

By this time we had watched and waited long enough to satisfy 
ourselves that the bark would do as well as we dared hope with 
her helm lashed ; and it also happened, very fortunately, that her yards 
were in the right trim for the posture in which she lay, having been 
pointed to the wind — the fore-yards on one tack, the main-yards on 
the other — when the gale came on to blow in the bay, and the braces 
had not since been touched. I walked with the girl to the entrance 
of the deck-house, the door of which faced forward. She entered 
the structure, and, while I waited outside, lighted a bull’s-eye lamp, 
with which she rejoined me, and together we went forward to another 
house built abaft of the galley. This had been the place in which 
the crew slept. The carpenter’s chest was here, and also the sound- 
ing-rod. We then went to the pumps, and while I held the lamp 


46 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


she dropped the rod down the sounding-pipe, -drew it up and brought 
it to the light and examined it, and named the depth of water there 
was in the hold. I do not recollect the figure, but I remember that, 
though it was significant, there was nothing greatly to alarm us in it, 
seeing how heavily and how frequently the bark had been flooded 
with the seas, and how much of the water might have made its way 
from above. 

I recount this little passage in a few lines, yet it forms one of the 
most sharp-cut of the memories of my adventure. The picture is 
before me as I write. I see the pair of us as we come to a dead stand, 
grasping each other for support, while the vessel rolls madly over on 
the slope of some huge hurtling sea; I see the bright glare from the 
bull’s-eye lamp in the girl’s hand, dancing like a will-o’-the-wisp upon 
the black flood between the rails washing with the slant of the decks 
to our knees ; I see her dropping the rod down the tube, coolly ex- 
amining it, declaring its indication ; while, to the flash of the lamp- 
light, I catch an instant’s glimpse of her face, shining out white — 
large-eyed as it seemed to me — upon the blackness rushing in thun- 
der athwart the deck. 

She led the way into the deck-house. There was a small lantern 
wildly swinging at a central beam — my companion had lighted it 
when she procured the bull’s-eye lamp — it diffused a good lustre, and 
I could see very plainly. It was just a plain, ordinary, shipboard 
interior, with three little windows of a side, a short table, lockers on 
either hand, and a sleeping-berth, or cabin, designed for the captain’s 
use, aft ; the companion-hatch, which led to the deck below, was be- 
tween the after-end of the cabin and the bulkhead of the berth, but 
the rapid glance I threw around speedily settled, as you may suppose, 
into a look — a long look — full of curiosity, surprise, and admiration, 
at the girl. 

She stood before me dressed as a sailor lad, in a suit of pflot cloth 
and a red silk handkerchief round her throat; but her first act on 
entering was to remove her cloth cap, that was streaming wet, and 
throw it down upon the table ; and thus she stood with her eyes 
fixed on me, as mine were on her, each of us surveying the other. 
Her hair was cut short, and was rough and plentiful, without remains 
of any sort of fashion in the wearing of it — nay, indeed, it was un- 
parted. It was very fair hair, and as pale as amber in the lamplight. 
Her eyebrows were of a darker color, and very perfectly arched, as 
though pencilled. It was impossible to guess the hue of her eyes by 
that light: they seemed of a very dark blue, such as might prove 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


47 


violet in the sunshine, soft and liquid, and of an expression, even in 
that hour of peril, of the horror of tempest, of the prospect of death, 
indeed, that might make one readily suppose her of a nature both 
sweet and merry. There was no sign of exposure to the weather 
upon her face ; she was white with the paleness of fatigue and emo- 
tion. Her cheeks were plump, her mouth small, the underlip a lit- 
tle pouted, and her teeth pearl-like and very regular. Even by the 
light in which I now surveyed her I never for a moment could have 
mistaken her for a lad. There was nothing in her garb to neutralize 
for an instant the suggestions of her sex. 

“ I will take you to my father,” said she ; “ but you must first eat 
and drink.” 

I could not have told how exhausted I was until I sank down upon 
a locker and rested my arms upon the table. I was too wearied to 
ask the questions that I should have put to her at another time, and 
could do no more than watch her, with a sort of dull wonder at her 
nimbleness, and the spirit and resolution of her movements as she 
lifted the lid of the locker and produced a case-bottle of Hollands, 
some cold meat, and a tin of white biscuits. 

“ We have no bread,” said she, smiling ; “we obtained some loaves 
off the Isle of Wight, but the last was eaten yesterday.” 

She took a tumbler from a rack and mixed a draught of the Hol- 
lands with some water which she got from a filter fixed to a stanchion, 
and extended the glass. 

“ Pray, let me follow you,” said I. She shook her head. “ Yes !” 
I cried ; “ God knows you should need some such tonic more than 
I!” 

I induced her to drink, and then took the glass and emptied it. 
A second dram warmed and heartened me. I was without appetite, 
but was willing to eat for the sake of such strength as might come 
from a meal. The girl made herself a sandwich of biscuit and meat, 
and we fell to. And so we sat facing each other, eating, staring at 
each other, the pair of us all the while hearkening with all our ears 
to the roaring noises outside, to the straining sounds within the ship, 
and feeling — I speak of myself — with every nerve tense as a fiddle- 
string, the desperate slants and falls and uprisals of the deck or plat- 
form upon which our feet rested. 


48 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


CHAPTER V. 

DAWN. 

There was refreshment, however, to every sense, beyond language 
to express, in the shelter which this deck-house provided after our 
long term of exposure to the pouring of the raging gale, into which 
was put the further weight of volumes of spray, that swept to the 
face like leaden hail, and carried the shriek of the shot of musketry 
as it slung past the ear. It was calm in this deck-hoiise ; the deaf- 
ening sounds without came somewhat muffled here ; but the furious 
motion of the vessel was startlingly illustrated by the play of the 
hanging lantern, and the swing of the illuminated globe was made 
the wilder and more wonderful by the calm of the atmosphere in 
which it oscillated. 

“ I do not think the sea is breaking over the ship,” said the girl, 
gazing at me in a posture of listening. “ It is hard to tell. I feel 
no tremble as of the falls of water on the deck.” 

“She is battling bravely,” said I; “but what now would I give 
for even a conple of those men of yours who jumped into the life- 
boat ! It is our being so few — two of us only, and you a woman — 
that makes our situation so hard.” 

“ I have not the strength of a man,” said she, with a smile, and 
fastening her soft eyes on my face ; “ but you w.ill find I have the 
heart of one. Will you come now and see my father ?” 

I at once rose and followed her. She knocked upon a little door 
where the bulkhead partitioned off the inner cabin, and then entered, 
bidding me follow her. 

A cot swung from the upper deck, and in it sat a man almost up- 
right, his back supported by bolsters and pillows. A bracket lamp 
burned steadily over a table, upon which lay a book or two, a chart, 
a few nautical instruments, and the like. There was no convenience 
for dressing, and I guessed that this had been a sort of chart-room, 
which the captain had chosen to occupy that he might be easily and 
without delay within hail or reach of the deck. 

He was a striking -looking man, with coal-black hair, parted on 
one side, lying very flat upon his head, and curling down upon his 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


49 


back. He wore a long goat-beard and mustaches, and was some- 
what grim with several days’ growth of whisker upon his cheeks ; 
his brows were thickly thatched, his forehead low, his eyes very dark, 
small, and penetrating. He was of a death-like whiteness, and showed, 
to my fancy, as a man whose days were numbered. That his disease 
was something more than rheumatism there was no need to look at 
him twice to make sure of. His daughter addressed him in the Dan- 
ish tongue; then, recollecting herself, with a half -glance at me of 
timid apology, she exclaimed, 

“ Father, this is Mr. Hugh Tregarthen, the noble gentleman who 
commanded the life-boat, who risked his life to save ours, and I pray 
that God, of His love for brave spirits, may restore him in safety to 
those who are dear to him.” 

Captain Nielsen, with a face contracted into a look of pain by emo- 
tion, extended his hand in silence over the edge of his cot. I grasped 
it in silence too. It was ice cold. He held me, gazing for a while 
without speech into my eyes, and I thought to see him shed tears ; 
then, putting his other hand upon mine in a caressing gesture, and 
letting it go, for the swing of the cot would not permit him to re- 
tain that posture of holding ray hand for above a moment or two, 
he exclaimed, in a low but quite audible voice, “ I ask the good and 
gracious Lord of heaven and earth to bless you for her sake — for my 
Helga’s sake — and in the name of those who have perished but 
whom you would have saved !” 

“Captain Nielsen,” said I, greatly moved by his manner and looks, 
“ would it had pleased heaven that I should have been of solid use 
to you and your men. I grieve to find you in this helpless state. 
I hope you do not suffer?” 

“ While I rest I am without pain,” he answered ; and I now ob- 
served that though his accent had a distinctly Scandinavian harsh- 
ness, such as was softened in his daughter’s speech by the clearness 
— I may say, by the melody — of her tones, his English was as pure- 
ly pronounced as hers. “But if I move,” he continued, “I am in 
agony. I cannot stand ; my legs are as idle and as helpless as though 
paralyzed. But now tell me of the Anine, Helga,” he cried, with a 
look of pathetic, eager yearning entering his face as he addressed 
her. “ Have you sounded the well ?” 

“Yes, father.” 

“ What water, my child ?” She told him. “ Ha 1” he exclaimed, 
with a sudden fretfulness, “the pump should be manned without de- 
lay ; but who is there to work it ?” 

4 


50 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ We two will, very shortly,” she exclaimed, turning to me. “We 
require a little breathing time. Mr. Tregarthen and I,” said she, 
still talking with her soft, appealing eye upon me, “ have strength, 
or, at all events, courage enough to give us strength ; and he will 
help me in whatever we may think needful to save the Anine and 
our lives.” 

“ Indeed, yes,” said I. 

“ Pray sit, both of you,” cried Captain Nielsen ; “ pray rest. 
Helga, have you seen to the gentleman’s comfort? Has he had any 
refreshment ?” 

She answered him, and seated herself upon a little locker, inviting 
me with a look to sit beside her, for there was no other accommoda- 
tion in that cabin than the locker. 

“ I wish I could persuade your daughter to take some rest,” said I. 
“ Her clothes, too, are soaked through.” 

“ It is salt water,” said Captain Nielsen ; “ it will not harm her. 
She is very used to salt water, sir;” and then he addressed his daugh- 
ter in Danish. The resemblance of some words he used to our 
English made me suppose he spoke about her resting. 

“ The pumps must be worked,” said she, looking at me; “we must 
keep the bark afloat first of all, Mr. Tregarthen. How trifling is 
want of sleep, how insignificant the discomfort of damp clothes, at 
such a time as this !” 

She opened her jacket and drew a silver watch from her pocket, 
and then took a bottle of medicine and a wineglass from a small 
circular tray swinging by thin chains near the cot, and gave her fa- 
ther a dose. He began now to question us, occasionally, in his hurry 
and eagerness, speaking in the Danish language. He asked about 
the masts — if they were sound, if any sails had been split, if the 
Anine had met with any injury apart from the loss of her two boats, 
of which he had evidently been informed by his daughter. A flush 
of temper came into his white cheeks when he talked of his men. 
He called the carpenter Damm a villain ; said that had he had his 
way the bark never would have brought up in that bay ; that Damm 
had carried her there, as he now believed, as much out of spite as 
out of recklessness, hoping, no doubt, that the Anine would go 
ashore, but of course taking it for granted that the crew would be 
rescued. He shook his fist as he pronounced the carpenter’s name, 
and then groaned aloud with anguish to some movement of his 
limbs brought about by his agitation. He lay quiet a little and 
grew calm, and talked, with his thin fingers locked upon his breast. 


THE 'ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


51 


He informed me that the Anine was his ship; that he had spent 
some hundreds of pounds in equipping her for this voyage ; that he 
had some risk in the cargo ; and that, in a word, all that he was 
worth in the wide world was in this fabric, now heavily and often 
madly laboring, unwatched, amid the blackness of the night of hur- 
ricane. 

“ Your daughter and I must endeavor to preserve her for you,” 
said I. 

“ May the blessed God grant it !” he cried. “And how good and 
heroic are you to speak thus !” said he, looking at me. “ Surely, 
your great Nelson was right when he called us Danes the brothers 
of the English. Brothers in affection may our countries ever be ! 
We have given you a sweet Princess — that is a debt it will tax your 
people’s generosity to repay.” The soft smile that lighted up his 
face as he spoke made me see a resemblance in him to his daughter. 
It was like throwing a light upon a picture. He was now looking 
at her with an expression full of tenderness and concern. 

“ Mr. — Mr.” — he began. 

“ Tregarthen,” said his daughter. 

“ Aye, Mr. Tregarthen,” he continued, “ will wonder that a girl 
should be clad as you are, Helga. Were you ever in Denmark, 
sir ?” 

“ Never,” I replied. 

“You will not suppose, I hope,” said he, with another soft, en- 
gaging smile that was pathetic also with the meaning it took from 
his white face, “that Helga’s attire is the costume of Danish ladies?” 

“Oh, no,” said I. “I see how it is. Indeed, Miss Nielsen ex- 
plained. The dress is a whim. And then it is a very convenient 
shipboard dress. But she should not be suffered to do the rough 
work of a sailor. Will you believe, Captain Nielsen, that she went 
out upon the bowsprit, and cut adrift or loosed the staysail there 
when your bark was on her beam ends in the trough of the sea ?” 

He nodded with emphasis, and said, “That is nothing. Helga 
has been to sea with me now for six years running. It is her de- 
light to dress herself in boy’s clothes — aye, and to go aloft and do 
the work of a seaman. It has hardened and spoiled her hands, but 
it has left her face fair to see. She is a good girl ; she loves her 
poor father; she is motherless, Mr. Tregarthen. Were my dear wife 
alive Helga would not be here. She is my only child,” and he made 
as if to extend his arms to her, but immediately crossed his hands, 
again addressing her in Danish as though he blessed her. 


62 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


I could perceive the spirit in her struggling with the weakness 
that this talk induced. She conquered her emotions with a glance 
at me that was one almost of pride, as though she would bid me ob- 
serve that she was mistress of herself, and said, changing the subject, 
but not abruptly, “ Father, do you think the vessel can struggle on 
without being'watched or helped from the deck ?” 

“ What can be done ?” he cried. “ The helm is securely lashed 
hard-a-lee?” She nodded. “What can be done?” he repeated. 
“ Your standing at the wheel would be of no use. What is the trim 
of the yards ?” 

“ They lie as they were braced up in the bay,” she responded. 

“ I have been in ships,” said he, “ that always managed best when 
left alone in hard weather of this kind. There was the old Danne- 
6roy,” he went on, with his eyes seeming to glisten to some sudden 
stir of happy memory in him. “ Twice when I was in her — once in 
the Baltic, once in the South Atlantic — we met with gales; well, 
perhaps not such a gale as this ; but it blew very fiercely, Mr. Tre- 
garthen. The captain, my old friend Sorensen, knew her as he knew 
his wife. He pointed the yards, lashed the helm, sent the crew be- 
low, and waited, smoking his pipe in the cabin till the weather 
broke. She climbed the seas dryly, and no whale could have made 
better weather of it, A ship has an intelligence of her own. It is 
the spirit of the sea that comes into her, as into the birds or fish of 
the ocean. Observe how long a vessel will wash about after her 
crew have abandoned her. They might have sunk her had they 
stayed, not understanding her. Much must be left to chance at sea, 
Helga. No; there is nothing to be done. Daram reported the 
hatch-covers on and everything secure while in the bay. It is so 
still, of course. Yet it will ease my mind to know she is a little 
freed of the water in her.” 

“ I am ready !” cried I. “ Is the pump too heavy for ray arms 
alone ? I cannot bear to think of your daughter toiling upon that 
wet and howling deck.” 

“ She will not spare herself, though you should wish it,” said her 
father. “ What is the hour, my dear ?” 

She looked at her watch. “ Twenty minutes after two.” 

“ A weary long time yet to wait for the dawn !” said he. “And 
it is Sunday morning — a day of rest for all the world save for the 
mariner. But it is God’s own day ; and when next Sabbath comes 
round we may be worshipping Him ashore, and thanking Him for 
our preservation.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


53 


As lie pronounced these words, Helga, as I will henceforth call 
her, giving me a glance of invitation, quitted the berth, and I fol- 
lowed her into the cabin, as I may term the interior of the deck- 
house. She picked up the bull’s-eye lamp and trimmed the mesh 
of it, and, arming herself with the sounding-rod, stepped on to the 
deck. I watched her movements with astonishment and admiration. 
I should have believed that I possessed fairly good sea-legs, even for 
a wilder play of plank than this which was now tossing us ; never- 
theless, I never dared let go with my hands ; and there were mo- 
ments when the upheaval was so swift, the fall so sickening, that 
my brain reeled again, and to have saved my life I could not have 
stirred the distance- of a pace until the sensation had passed. But, 
excepting an occasional pause, an infrequent grasp at what was next 
her during some unusually heavy roll, Helga moved with almost the 
same sort of ease that must have been visible in her on-a level floor. 
Her figure, indeed, seemed to float ; it swayed to the rolling of the 
deck as a bubble hovers perpendicular upon the pipe -stem you 
sharply incline under it. 

After the comparative calm of the shelter I stepped from, the up- 
roar of the gale sounded as though it were blowing as hard again as 
at the time of our quitting the deck. The noise of the rushing and 
roaring waters was deafening; as the vessel brought her masts to 
windward, the screaming and whistling aloft are not to be imagined. 
The wind was clouded with spray, the decks sobbed furiously with 
wet, and it was still as pitch-black as ever it had been at any hour 
of the night. Helga threw the light of the bull’s-eye upon the 
pump -brake or handle, and we then fell to work. At intervals we 
could contrive to hear each other speak — that is to say, in some mo- 
mentary lull, when the bark was in the heart of a valley ere she rose 
to the next thunderous acclivity, yelling in her rigging with the 
voice of a wounded giantess. For how long we stuck to that dis- 
mal, clanking job I cannot remember. The water gushed copiously 
as we plied the handle, and the foam was all about our feet as though 
we stood in a half-fathom’s depth of surf. I was amazed by the en- 
durance and pluck of the girl, and, indeed, I found half my strength 
in her courage. Had I been alone, I am persuaded I should have 
given up. The blow of the wheel that had dashed me into uncon- 
sciousness, coming on top of my previous labors, not to speak of 
that exhaustion of mind which follows upon such distress of heart 
as my situation and the memory of my foundered boat and the pos- 
sible loss of all her people had occasioned in me, must have proved 


54 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


too much but for the example and influence, the inspiriting pres- 
ence, of this little Danish lioness, Helga. 

In one of those intervals I have spoken of she cried out, “We 
have done enough — for the present and, so saying, she let go of 
the pump-handle, and asked me to hold the lamp while she dropped 
the rod. I had supposed our efforts insignificant, and was surprised 
to learn that we had sunk the water by some inches. We returned 
to the deck-house, but scarcely had I entered it when I was seized 
with exhaustion so prostrating that I fell, rather than seated myself, 
upon the locker, and hid my face in my arms upon the table till the 
sudden darkness should have passed from my eyes. When, pres- 
ently, I looked up, I found Helga at my side with a glass of spirits 
in her hand. There was a wonderful anxiety and compassion in her 
gaze. 

“ Drink this !” said she. “ The work has been too hard for you. 
It is my fault — I am sorry — I am sorry.” 

I swallowed the draught, and was the better for it. 

“ This weakness,” said I, “ must come from the blow I got on 
deck. I have kept you from your father. He will want your re- 
port,” and I stood up. 

She gave me her arm, and but for that support I believe I should 
not have been able to make my way to the captain’s berth, so weak 
did I feel in the limbs, so paralyzing to my condition of prostration 
was the violent motion of the deck. 

Captain Nielsen looked eagerly at us over the edge of his cot. 
Helga would not release me until I was seated on the locker. 

“ Mr. Tregarthen’s strength has been overtaxed, father,” said she. 

“ Poor man ! poor man !” he cried. “ God will bless him. He 
has suffered much for us.” 

“ It must be a weakness, following my having been stunned,” said 
I, ashamed of myself that I should be in need of a girl’s pity at 
such a time — the pity of a girl, too, who was sharing my labors and 
danger. 

“ What have you to tell me, Helga ?” exclaimed the captain. 

She answered him in Danish, and they exchanged some sentences 
in that tongue. 

“ She is a tight ship,” cried the captain, addressing me. “ It is 
good news,” he went on, his white countenance lighted up with an 
expression of exultation, “ to hear that you two should be able to 
control the water in the hold. Does the weather seem to moderate ?” 

“ No,” said I ; “it blow9 as hard as ever it did.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


55 


“ Does the sea break aboard ?” 

“ There is plenty of water washing about,” said I, “ but the vessel 
seems to be making a brave fight.” 

“When daylight comes, Helga,” said he, “you will hoist a distress 
color at the mizzen-peak. If the peak be wrecked or the halyards 
gone, the flag must be seized to the mizzen-shrouds.” 

“I will see to all that, father,” she answered. “And now, Mr. Tre- 
garthen, you will take some rest.” 

I could not bear the idea of sleeping while she remained up ; yet, 
though neither of us could be of the least use on deck, our both 
resting at once was not to be thought of, if it was only for the sake 
of the comfort that was to be got out of knowing that there was 
somebody awake and on w r atch. 

“ I will gladly rest,” said I, “ on condition that you now lie down 
and sleep for two or three hours.” 

She answered, no ; she was less tired than I ; she had not under- 
gone what I had suffered in the life -boat. She begged me to take 
some repose. 

“ It is my selfishness that entreats you,” said she. “ If you break 
down, what are my father and I to do ?” 

“ True,” I exclaimed ; “but the three of us would be worse off still 
if you were to break down.” 

However, as I saw that she was very much in earnest, while her 
father also joined her in entreating me to rest, I consented on her 
agreeing first to remove her soaking clothes ; for it was miserable to 
see her shivering from time to time, and looking as though she had 
just been dragged over the side, and yet bravely disregarding the 
discomfort, smiling as often as she addressed me, and conversing 
with her father with a face of serenity, plainly striving to soothe and 
reassure him by an air of cheerful confidence. 

She left the cabin, and Captain Nielsen talked of her at once ; 
told me that her mother was an Englishwoman ; that he was mar- 
ried in London, in which city he had lived from time to time ; that 
Helga had received a part of her education at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
where his wife’s family then lived, though they were now scattered 
or perhaps dead, only one member, to his knowledge, still residing 
at Newcastle. He took Helga to sea with him, he said, after his 
wife died, that he might have her under his eye ; and such was her 
love for the sea, such her intelligent interest in everything which 
concerned a ship, that she could do as much with a vessel as he him- 
self, and had often, at her own request, taken charge for a watch, 


56 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


during which she had shortened canvas and put the craft about as 
though, in short, she had been skipper. The poor man seemed to 
forget his miserable situation while he spoke of Helga. His heart 
was full of her ; his eyes swam with tears while he cried, “ It is not 
that I fear death for myself, nor for myself do I dread the loss of 
my ship, which would signify beggary for me and my child. It is 
for her — for my little Helga. We have many friends at Holding, 
where I was born, and at Bjert, Vonsild, Skandrup, and at other 
places. But who will help the orphan ? My friends are not rich — 
they could do little, no matter how generous their will. I pray God, 
for my child’s sake, that we may be preserved — aye, and for your 
sake — I should have said that,” he added, feebly smiling, though his 
face was one of distress. 

He was beginning to question me about my home, and I was tell- 
ing him that my mother was living, and that she and I were alone 
in the world, and that I feared she would think me drowned, and 
grieve till her heart broke ; for she was an old lady, and I was her 
only son, as Helga was his only daughter, when the girl entered, and 
I broke off. She had changed her attire, but her clothes were still 
those of a lad. I had thought to see her come in dressed as a wom- 
an, and she so interpreted the look I fastened upon her, for she at 
once said, without the least air of confusion — as though, indeed, she 
were sensible of nothing in her apparel that demanded an excuse 
from her — “ I must preserve my sailor’s garb until the fine weather 
comes. How should I be able to move about the decks in a gown ?” 

“ Helga,” cried her father, “ Mr. Tregarthen is the only son of his 
mother, and she awaits his return.” 

Instantly entered an expression of beautiful compassion into her 
soft eyes. Her gaze fell, and she remained for a few moments silent. 
The lamplight shone upon her tumbled hair, and I am without words 
to make you see the sweet, sorrowful expression of her pale face as 
she stood close against the door, silent and looking down. 

“I have kept my word, Mr. Tregarthen,” said she, presently. 
“ Now you will keep yours and rest yourself. There is my father’s 
cabin below.” 

I interrupted her. “No; if you please, I will lie down upon one 
of the lockers in the deck-house.” 

“ It will make a hard bed,” said she. 

“ Not too hard for me,” said I. 

“Well, you shall lie down upon one of those lockers, and yon 
shall be comfortable, too and, saying this, she went out again, and 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


51 


shortly afterwards returned with some rugs and a bolster. These 
she placed upon the lee locker, and a minute or two later I had 
shaken the poor captain by the hand, and had stretched myself upon 
the rugs, where I lay listening to the thunder of the gale and fol- 
lowing the wild motions of the hark, and thinking of what had hap- 
pened since the life-boat summons had rung me into this black and 
frothing and roaring night from my snug fireside. 

It was not long, however, before I fell asleep. I had undergone 
some life-boat experiences in my time, but never before was nature 
so exhausted in me. The roaring of the gale, the cannonading of 
the deck-house by incessant heavy showerings of water, the extrava- 
gant motions of the plunging and rolling vessel, might have been a 
mother’s lullaby sung by the side of a gently rocked cradle, so deep 
was the slumber these sounds of thunder left unvexed. 

I awoke from a dreamless, death-like sleep, and opened my eyes 
against the light of the cold, stone-gray dawn, and my mind instant- 
ly coming to me, I sprang from the locker, pausing to guess at the 
weather from the movement and the sound. So far as I might there 
know it was still blowing a whole gale of wind, and I was unable 
to stand without grasping the table for support. The deck-house 
door was shut, and the planks within were dry, though I could hear 
the water gushing and pouring in the alleys between the deck-house 
and the bulwarks. I thought to take a view of the weather through 
one of the windows, but the glass was everywhere blind with wet. 

At this moment the door of the captain’s berth was opened, and 
Helga stepped out. She immediately approached me, with both 
hands extended in the most cordial manner imaginable. 

“ You have slept well,” she cried ; “ I bent over you three or four 
times. You are the better for the rest, I am sure.” 

“I am, indeed,” said I. “And you?” 

“Oh, I shall sleep by-and-by. What shall we do for hot water? 
It is impossible to light the galley fire ; yet how grateful would be 
a cup of hot tea or coffee !” 

“ Have you been on deck,” said I, “ while I slept ?” 

“ Oh, yes, in and out,” she answered. “All is well so far — I mean, 
the Anine goes on making a brave fight. The dawn has not long 
broken. I have not yet seen the ship by daylight. We must sound 
the well, Mr. Tregarthen, before we break our fast — my fear is there,” 
she added, pointing to the deck, by which she signified the hold. 

There was but little of her face to be seen. She was wearing an 
India-rubber cap shaped like a sou’-wester, the brim of which came 


58 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


low, while the flannel ear-flaps almost smothered her cheeks. I could 
now see, however, that her eyes were of a dark blue, with a spirit of 
life and even of vivacity in them that expressed a wonderful triumph 
of heart over the languor of frame indicated by the droop of the 
eyelids. A little of her short Jaair of pale gold showed under the 
hinder thatch of the sou’-wester; her face was blanched. But I 
could not look at the pretty mouth, the pearl-like teeth, the soft blue 
eyes, the delicately figured nostril, without guessing that in the hour 
of bloom this girl would show as bonnily as the fairest lass of cream 
and roses that ever hailed from Denmark. 

We stepped on to the deck — into the thunder of the gale and the 
flying clouds of spray. I still wore my oil-skins, and was as dry in 
them as at the hour of leaving home. I felt the comfort, I assure 
you, of my high sea-boots as I stood upon that deck, holding on a 
minute to the house-front, with the water coming in a little rage of 
froth to my legs, and washing to leeward with the scend of the bark 
with the force of a river overflowing a dam. 

Our first glance was aloft. The foretop-gallant-mast was broken 
off at the head of the top-mast, and hung with its two yards sup- 
ported by its gear, but giving a strange, wrecked look to the whole 
of the fabric up there as it swung to the headlong movements of the 
hull, making the spars, down to the solid foot of the foremast, trem- 
ble with the spearing blows it dealt. The jib-booms were also 
gone, and this, no doubt, had happened through the carrying away 
of the top-gallant-mast ; otherwise all was right up above, assuming, 
to be sure, that nothing was sprung. But the wild, soaked, desolate 
— the almost mutilated — look, indeed, of the bark ! How am I to 
communicate the impression produced by the soaked, dark lines of 
sail-cloth rolled upon the yards, the ends of rope blowing out like 
the pennant of a man-of-war, the arched and gleaming gear, the decks 
dusky with incessant drenchings and emitting sullen flashes as the 
dark flood upon them rolled from side to side ! The running rig- 
ging lay all about, working like serpents in the wash of the water. 
From time to time a sea would strike the bow and burst on high in 
steam -like volumes, which glanced ghastly against the leaden sky 
that overhung us in strata of scowling vapor, dark as thunder in 
places, yet seemingly motionless. A furious Atlantic sea was run- 
ning; it came along in hills of frothing green, which shaped them- 
selves out of a near horizon thick with storms of spume. But there 
was the regularity of the unfathomed ocean in the run of the surge, 
mountainous as it was ; and the bark, with her lashed helm, not a 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


59 


rag showing save a tatter or two of the foresail, whose head we had 
exposed on the previous night, soared and sank, with her port bow 
to the sea, with the regularity of the tick of a clock. 

There was nothing in sight. I looked eagerly round the sea, but 
it was all thickness and foam and headlong motion. We went aft 
to the compass to observe if there had happened any shift in the 
wind, and what the trend of the bark was, and also to note the con- 
dition of the wheel, which could only have been told in the darkness 
by groping. The helm was perfectly sound and the lashings held 
bravely. I could observe now that the wheel was a small one, formed 
of brass ; also that it worked the rudder by means of a screw, and 
it was this purchase or leverage, I suppose, that had made me find 
the bark easy to steer while she was scudding. The gale was blow- 
ing fair out of the north-east, and the vessel’s trend, therefore, was 
on a dead south-west course, with the help of a mountainous sea be- 
sides, to drive her away from the land, beam on. I cried to Helga 
that I thought our drift would certainly not be less than four, and 
perhaps five, miles in the hour. She watched the sea for a little, and 
then nodded to me ; but it was scarcely likely that she could con- 
jecture the rate of progress amid so furious a commotion of waters, 
with the great seas boiling to the bulwark rail, and rushing away to 
leeward in huge round backs of freckled green. 

She was evidently too weary to talk — rendered too languid by the 
bitter cares and sleepless hours of the long night, to exert her voice 
so as to render herself audible in that thunder of wind which came 
flashing over the side in guns and bursts of hurricane power; and to 
the few sentences I uttered, or rather shouted, she responded by 
nods and shakes of the head, as it might be. There was a flag- 
locker under the gratings abaft the wheel, and she opened the box, 
took out a small Danish ensign, bent it on to the peak signal-hal- 
yards, and between us we ran it half-mast high, and there it stood, 
hard and firm as a painted board, a white cross on red ground, and 
the red of it made it resemble a tongue of fire against the soot of 
the sky. This done, we returned to the main -deck, and Helga 
sounded the pump. She went to work with all the expertness of a 
seasoned salt, carefully dried the rod and chalked it, and then wait- 
ed until the roll of the bark brought her to a level keel before drop- 
ping it. I watched her with astonishment and admiration. It would 
until now have seemed impossible to me that any mortal woman 
should have had in her the makings of so nimble and practised a 
sailor as I found her to be, with nothing, either, of the tenderness of 


60 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


girlhood lost in her, in speech, in countenance, in looks, spite of her 
boy’s clothes. She examined the rod, and eyed me with a grave 
countenance. 

“ Does the water gain ?” said I. 

“There are two more inches of it,” she answered, “than the 
depth I found in the hold last night when I first sounded. We 
ought to free her somewhat.” 

“ I am willing,” I exclaimed ; “ but are you equal to such labor ? 
A couple of hours should not make a very grave difference.” m 

“ No, no !” she interrupted, with a vehemence that put her air of 
weariness to flight. “ A couple of hours would be too long to wait;” 
saying which, she grasped the brake and we went to work as before. 

No one who has not had to labor in this way can conceive the fa- 
tigue of it. There is no sort of shipboard work that more quickly 
exhausts. It grieved me to the soul that my associate in this toil 
should be a girl, with the natural weakness of her sex accentuated 
yet by what she had suffered and was still suffering ; but her spirit- 
ed gaze forbade remonstrance. She seemed scarcely able to stand, 
when utter weariness forced her at last to let go of the brake. Nev- 
ertheless, she compelled her feeble hands again to drop the rod down 
the well. We had reduced the water to the height at which we had 
left it before, and, with a faint smile of congratulation, she made a 
movement towards the deck-house ; but her gait was so staggering, 
there was such a character of blindness, too, in her posture as she 
started to walk, that I grasped her arm and, indeed, half-carried her 
into the house. 

She sat and rested herself for a few minutes, but appeared unable 
to speak. I watched her anxiously, with something of indignation 
that her father, who professed to love her so dearly, should not come 
between her and her devotion, and insist upon her resting. Pres- 
ently she rose and walked to his cabm, telling me with her looks to 
follow her. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


61 


CHAPTER VI. 

CAPTAIN NIELSEN. 

Captain Nielsen was veritably corpse-like in aspect viewed by the 
cold gray iron light sifting through the little windows out of the 
spray-shrouded air. The unnatural brightness of his eyes painfully 
defined the attenuation of his face, and the sickly, parchment-like 
complexion of his skin. He extended his hand, but could hardly 
find time to deliver a greeting, so violent was his hurry to receive his 
daughter’s report. He shook his head when he heard that his top- 
gallant-mast and jib-booms were wrecked, and passionately exclaimed, 
in Danish, on his daughter telling him of the increase of water in the 
hold. 

“ She must be taking it in from below,” he then cried, in English ; 
“ she has strained herself. Should this continue, what is to be done? 
She will need to be constantly pumped — and ah, my God ! you are 
but two.” 

“ Yes, captain,” cried I, incensed that he should appear to have 
no thoughts but for his ship ; “ but if you do not insist upon your 
daughter taking some rest there will be but one, long before this 
gale has blown itself out.” 

“Oh, my dear, it is so !” he exclaimed, looking at her on a sudden 
with impassioned concern. “ Mr. Tregarthen is right. You will sink 
under your efforts. Your dear heart will break. Rest now — rest, 
my beloved child ! I command you to rest ! You must go below ; 
you must lie in your own cabin. This good gentleman is about — 
he will sit with me and go forth and report. The Anine tends her- 
self, and there is nothing in human skill to help her outside what she 
can herself do.” 

“But we must not starve, father,” she answered; “let us first 
breakfast, as best we can, and then I will go below.” 

She left the cabin and promptly returned, bringing with her the 
remains of the cold meat we had supped off, some biscuit, and a bot- 
tle of red wine. Her father drank a little of the wine and ate a mor- 

_ * 

sel of biscuit ; indeed, food seemed to excite a loathing in him. I 


62 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


saw that Helga eyed him piteously, but she did not press him to eat : 
it might be that she had experience of his stubbornness. She said, 
in a soft aside, to me, “His appetite is leaving him, and how can 
I tempt him without the means of cooking? Does not he look very 
ill this morning ?” 

“ It is worry, added to rheumatic pains,” said I ; “we must get him 
ashore as soon as possible, where he can be nursed in comfort.” 

But though these words flowed readily, out of my sympathy with 
the poor, brave, suffering girl, they were assuredly not in correspond- 
ence with my secret feelings. It was not only I was certain that 
Captain Nielsen lay in his cot a dying man ; the roaring of the wind, 
the beating of the sea against the bark, the wild extravagant leap- 
ings and divings, the perception that water was draining into the 
hold, and that there were but two of us — and one of those two a 
girl — to work the pumps, made a mockery to my heart of my refer- 
ence to the captain getting ashore and being nursed there. 

We sat in that slanting and leaping interior with plates on our 
knees. The girl feigned to eat, her head drooped with weariness, 
yet I noticed that she would force a cheerful note into the replies she 
made to her father’s ceaseless feverish questions. When we had end- 
ed our meal, she left us to go below to her cabin; but before leaving 
she asked me, with eyes full of tender pleading, to keep her father’s 
heart up, to make the best of such reports as I might have to give 
him after going out to take a look round ; and she told me that he 
would need his physic at such and such a time, and so lingered, dwell- 
ing upon him and glancing at him, and then she went out in a hur- 
ry, with one hand upon her breast, yet not so swiftly but that I could 
see her eyes were swimming. 

“ There is a barometer in the cabin,” said Captain Nielsen ; “ will 
you tell me how the mercury stands ?” 

The glass was fixed to the bulkhead outside. I returned and gave 
him the reading. 

“ ’Tis a little rise !” he cried, with his unnaturally bright eyes ea- 
gerly fastened upon me. 

I would not tell him that it was not so — that the mercury, indeed, 
stood at the level I had observed on the preceding day in my glass 
in the life-boat house. 

“ Fierce weather of this sort,” said I, “ soon exhausts itself.” 

He continued to stare at me, but now with an air of musing that 
somewhat softened the painful brilliant intentness of his regard. 

“ I pray God,” said he, “ that this weather may speedily enable us 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


63 


to obtain help, for I fear that if I am not treated I shall get very 
low, perhaps die. I am ill — yet what is my malady ? This rheu- 
matism is a sudden seizure. I could walk when at Cuxhaven.” 

In as cheerful a voice as I could assume, I begged him to consider 
that his mind might have much to do with those bodily sensations 
which made him feel ill. 

“ It may be so, it may be so,” he exclaimed, with a sad smile of 
faltering hope. “ I wish to live. I am not an old man. It will be 
hard if my time is to come soon. It is Helga — it is Helga,” he mut- 
tered, pressing his brow r with his thin hand. I was about to speak. 
“How wearisome,” he broke out, “is this ceaseless tossing! I ran 
away to sea; it was my own doing. I had my childish dreams — 
strange and beautiful fancies of foreign countries — and I ran away,” 
he went on, in a rambling manner, like one thinking aloud. “ And 
yet I love the old ocean, though it is serving me cruelly now. It has 
fed me — it has held me to its breast — and my nourishment and life 
have come from it.” He started, and, bringing his eyes away from 
the upper deck on which they had been fixed while he spoke, he 
cried, “Sir, you are a stranger to me, but you are an Englishman of 
heroic heart, and you will forgive me. Should I die, and should God 
be pleased to spare you and my child, will you protect her until she 
has safely returned to her friends at Holding ? She will be alone in 
any part of the world until she is there, and if I am assured that she 
will have the generous compassion of your heart with her, a guardian 
to take my place until she reaches Holding, it will make me easy in 
my ending, let the stroke come when it will.” 

“ I came to this ship to save your lives,” I answered. “ I hope to 
be an instrument yet of helping to save them. Trust me to do your 
bidding, if it were only for my admiration of your daughter’s heroic 
qualities. But do not speak of dying, Captain Nielsen — ” 

He interrupted me. “ There is my dear friend Pastor Blicker, of 
Holding, <md there is Pastor Jansen of Skandrup. They are good 
and gentle Christian men, who will receive Helga, and stand by her 
and soothe her and counsel her as to my little property — ah, my little 
property !” he cried. “ If this vessel founders, what have I ?” 

“Pray,” said I, with the idea of quietly coaxing his mind into a 
more cheerful mood, “ what is so seriously wrong with you, captain, 
that you should lie there gloomily foreboding your death? Such 
rheumatism as yours is not very quick to kill.” 

“ I was long dangerously ill of a fever in the West Indies,” he an- 
swered, “ and it left a vital organ weak. The mischief is here, I fear,” 


64 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


said he, touching his right side above his hip. “ I felt very ill at 
Cuxhaven ; but this voyage was to be made ; I am too poor a man 
to suffer my health to forfeit the money that was to be got by it. 
Hark ! what was that ?” 

He leaned his head over the cot, straining his hearing with a nerv- 
ous fluttering of his emaciated fingers. It was miserable to see how 
white the skin of his sunken cheeks showed against the whiteness of 
the canvas of his cot. 

“ I heard nothing,” I answered. 

“ It was the noise of a blow,” he exclaimed. “ Pray go and see if 
anything is wrong,” he added, speaking out of his habit of giving 
orders, and with a peremptoriness that forced a smile from me as I 
went to the door. 

I made my way through the house on to the deck, and looked 
about me, but it was the same scene to stare at and harken to that I 
had viewed before : the same thunder and shriek of wind, the same 
clouding of the forward part of the bark in foam, the same mis- 
erable, dismal picture of water flashing from bulwark to bulwark, of 
high green frothing seas towering past the line of the rail as the ves- 
sel swung in a smother of seething yeast into the trough. 

I caught sight of a long hen-coop abaft the structure in which the 
sailors had lived, with the red gleam of a cock’s comb between a cou- 
ple of the bars ; and guessing that the wretched inmates must by this 
time, be in sore need of food and water, I very cautiously made my 
way to the coop, holding on by something at every step. The coop 
was, indeed, full of poultry, but all lay drowned. 

I returned to the deck-house and mounted on top of it, where i 
should be able to obtain a good view of as much of the ocean as was 
exposed, and where, also, I should be out of the wet which, on the 
main-deck, rolled with weight enough at times to sweep a man off 
his legs. The roof of the house, if I may so term it, was above the 
rail, and the whole fury of the gale swept across it. I never could 
have guessed at the hurricane-force of the wind while standing on 
the deck beneath. It was impossible to face it ; if I glanced but one 
instant to windward my eyes seemed to be blown into my head. 

I had not gained that elevation above a minute when I heard a 
sharp rattling aloft, and, looking upward, I perceived that the main- 
royal had blown loose. For the space of a breath or two it made 
the rattling noise that had called my attention to it, then the whole 
bladder-like body of it was swept in a flash away from the yard, and 
nothing remained but a whip or two streaming straight out like white 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


65 


hair from the spar. A moment later the maintop-gallant sail, that 
had been, no doubt, hastily and badly furled, was blown out of the 
gaskets. I thought to see it go as the royal had, but while I watched, 
waiting for the flight of the rags of it down into the leeward gloom 
of the sky, the mast snapped off at the cap at the instant of the sail 
bursting and disappearing like a gush of mist, and down fell the 
whole mass of hamper to a little below the stay, under which it mad- 
ly swung, held by the backstays. 

This disaster, comparatively trifling as it was, gave the whole fab- 
ric a most melancholy, wrecked look. It affected me in a manner I 
should not have thought possible in one who knew so much about the 
sea and shipwreck as I. It impressed me as an omen of approach- 
ing dissolution. “ What, in God’s name, can save us ?” I remember 
thinking, as I brought my eyes away from the two broken masts, 
swinging and spearing high up under the smoke-colored, compacted, 
apparently stirless heaps of vapor stretching from sea-line to sea-line. 
“ What put together by mortal hands can go on resisting this cease- 
less, tremendous beating ?” and as I thus thought, the vessel, with a 
wild sweep of her bow, smote a giant surge rushing laterally at her, 
and a whole green sea broke roaring over the forecastle, making 
every timber in her tremble with a volcanic thrill, and entirely sub- 
merging the forepart in white waters, out of which she soared, with 
a score of cataracts flying in smoke from her sides. 

I looked for the flag that Helga and I had half-masted a little 
while before ; it had as utterly disappeared from between its toggles 
as though the bunting had been ripped up and down by a knife. As 
I was in the act of dragging myself along to the ladder to go below, 
I spied a sort of smudge oozing out of the iron-hued thickness past 
the head of a great sea whose arching peak was like a snow-clad hill. 
I crouched down to steady myself, and presently what I had at first 
thought to be some dark shadow of cloud upon the near horizon grew 
into the proportions of a large ship, running dead before the gale 
under a narrow band of maintop-sail. 

She was heading to pass under our stern, and rapidly drew out, 
and in a few minutes I had her clear — clean and bright as a new 
painting against the background of shadow, along whose dingy, misty 
base the ocean line was washing in flickering green heights. She 
was a large steam-frigate, clearly a foreigner, for I do not know that 
our country had a ship of the kind afloat at the time. She had a 
white band, broken by ports, and the black and gleaming defences 
of her bulwarks were crowned with stowed hammocks. Her top- 
5 


66 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


gallant-masts were housed, and the large cross-trees and huge black 
tops and wide spread of shrouds gave her a wonderfully heavy, mas- 
sive, ship-of-war look aloft. The band of close-reefed maintop-sail 
had the glare of foam as it swung majestically from one sea-line to 
the other, slowly swaying across the dark and stooping heaven with 
a noble and solemn rhythm of movement. I could never have imag- 
ined a sight to more wholly fascinate my gaze. Always crouching 
low, I watched her under the shelter of my hands locked upon my 
brow. I beheld nothing living aboard of her. She came along as 
though informed by some spirit and government of her own. As 
her great stem sank to the figure-head, there arose a magnificent boil- 
ing, a mountainous cloud of froth on either bow of her, and the roar 
of those riven seas seemed to add a deeper tone of thunder to the 
gale. All was taut aboard — every rope like a ruled line — different, 
indeed, from our torn and wrecked and trailing appearance on high ! 
She swept past within a quarter of a mile of us, and what pen could 
convey the incredible power suggested by that great fabric as her 
stern lifted to the curl of the enormous Atlantic surge, and the whole 
ship rushed forward on the hurling froth of the sea with an electric 
velocity that brought the very heart into one’s throat. 

She was a mere smudge again — this time to leeward — in a few 
minutes. I could only stare at her. Our flag had blown away, I was 
without power to signal ; and even if I had been able to commu- 
nicate our condition of distress, what help could she have offered ? 
What could she have done for us in such a sea as was now running ? 
Yet the mere sight of her had heartened me. She made me feel that 
help could never be wanting in an ocean so ploughed by keels as the 
Atlantic. 

I crawled down on to the quarter-deck, and returned to the cap- 
tain’s cabin. The poor man at once fell with feverish eagerness to 
questioning me. I told him honestly that the maintop-gallant mast 
had carried away while I was on deck, but that there was nothing 
else wrong that I could distinguish ; that the bark was still making a 
noble fight, though there were times when the seas broke very fierce- 
ly and dangerously over the forecastle. 

He wagged his head with a gesture of distress, crying, “So 
it is! so it is! One spar after another, and thus may we go to 
pieces !” 

I told him of the great steam-frigate that had passed, but to this 
piece of news he listened with a vacant look, and apparently could 
think of nothing but his spars. He asked, in a childish, fretful way 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


67 


how long Helga had been below, and I answered him stoutly not 
nearly long enough for sleep. 

“Aye,” cried he, “but the bark needs to be pumped, sir.” 

“Your daughter will work the better for rest,” said I; and then 
looking at my watch I found it was time to give him his physic. 

He exclaimed, looking at the wineglass, “ There is no virtue in this 
stuff. The sufferer can make but one use of it,” and, still preserving 
a manner of curious childishness, he emptied the contents of the 
glass over the edge of his cot on to the deck, and, as he swung, lay 
watching the mess of it on the floor with a smile. I guessed that 
expostulation would be fruitless, and, indeed, having but very little 
faith myself in any sort of physic, I secretly applauded his behav- 
ior. 

I sat down upon the locker, and leaning my back against the bulk- 
head endeavored, by conversation, to bring a cheerful look to his 
countenance ; but his mood of depression was not to be conquered. 
At times he would ramble a little, quote passages from Danish plays 
in his native tongue, then pause with his head on one side as though 
waiting for me to applaud what he forgot I did not understand'. 

“ How fine is this from ‘ Palnatoke,’ ” he would cry ; “ or hark to 
this from that noble performance, ‘ Hacon Yarl !’ Ah, it is England 
alone can match Oehlenschlager.” 

I could only watch him mutely. Then he would break away to 
bewail his spars again, and to cry out that Helga would be left pen- 
niless, would be a poor beggar-girl, if his ship foundered. 

“ But is not the Anine insured ?” said I. 

“Yes,” he answered, “but not by me. I was obliged to borrow 
money upon her, and she is insured by the man who lent me the 
money. 

“ But you have an interest in the cargo, Captain Nielsen ?” 

“Aye,” cried he, “ and that I insured ; but what will it be worth to 
my poor little Helga ?” — and he hid his face in his hands and rocked 
himself. 

However, he presently grew somewhat composed, and certainly 
more rational, and, after a while, I found myself talking about Tin- 
trenale, my home and associations, my life-boat excursions, and the 
like ; and then we conversed upon the course that was to be adopted 
should the weather moderate and find us still afloat. We should be 
able to do nothing, he said, without assistance from a passing ship, 
in the sense of obtaining a few sailors to work the bark ; or a steamer 
might come along that would be willing to give us a tow. 


68 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“The Land’s End cannot be far off,” said he. 

“ No,” said I, “ not if this gale means to drop to-day. But it will 
be far enough off if it is to go on blowing.” 

He inquired what I made the drift to be, and then calculated that 
the English coast would now be bearing about east-north-east, sixty 
miles distant. “ Let the wind chop round,” cried he, with a gleam 
in his sunken eye, “ and you and Helga would have the Anine in the 
Channel before midnight.” 

We continued to talk in this strain, and he seemed to forget the 
wretchedness of our situation ; then, suddenly, he called out to know 
the time, abruptly breaking away from what he was saying. 

“ Hard upon eleven o’clock,” said I. 

“This will not do,” he cried; “the bark, as we talk, is filling under 
our feet. The well should be sounded. Helga must be called. I 
beseech you to call Helga,” he repeated, nervously, smiting the side 
of his cot with his clinched hand. “Ah, God !” he added, “ that I 
should be without the power to move !” 

“I will sound the well,” said I ; “ should I find an increase I will 
arouse your daughter.” 

“ Go, I beg of you !” he cried, in high notes. “ The bark seems 
sodden to me. She does not lift and fall as she did.” 

I guessed this to be imagination, but the mere fancy of such a 
thing being true frightened me also, and I hastily went out. I dried 
the rod and chalked it as Helga had, and, watching my chance, drop- 
ped it, and found five inches of water above the level our last spell 
at the pump had left in the hold. I was greatly startled, and to make 
sure that my first cast was right I sounded a second time, and sure 
enough, the rod showed five inches, as before. I hastened with the 
news to the captain. 

“ I knew it ! I feared it !” he cried, his voice shrill with a very 
ecstasy of hurry, anxiety, and sense of helplessness that worked in 
him. “ Cali Helga — lose not an instant — run — I beg you will run.” 

“ But run where ?” cried I. “ Where does the girl sleep ?” 

“ Go down the hatchway in the deck-house,” he shouted, in shrill 
accents, as though bent upon putting into this moment the whole of 
his remaining slender stock of vitality. “There are four cabins 
under this deck. Hers is the aftermost one on the starboard side. 
Don’t delay ! If she does not instantly answer, enter and arouse her;” 
and as I sped from the cabin I heard him crying that he knew by 
the motions of the ship she was filling rapidly, and that she would go 
down on a sudden like lead. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


69 


It was a black, square trap of hatchway into which I looked a mo- 
ment before putting my legs over. There was a short flight of al- 
most perpendicular steps conducting to the lower deck. On my 
descending I found the place so dark that I was forced to halt till 
my eyes should grow used to the obscurity. There was a disagree- 
able smell of cargo down here, and such a heart-shaking uproar of 
straining timbers, of creaking bulkheads, of the thumps of seas and 
the muffled, yearning roar of the giant waters sweeping under the 
vessel, that for a little while I stood as one utterly bewildered. 

Soon, however, I managed to distinguish outlines, and, with out- 
stretched hands and wary legs, made my way to the cabin Captain 
Nielsen had indicated and beat upon the door. There was no re- 
sponse. I beat again, listening, scarcely thinking, perhaps, that the 
girl would require a voice as keen as a boatswain’s pipe to thread the 
soul-confounding and brain-muddling clamor in this after-deck of the 
storm-beaten bark. “ He bade me enter,” thought I, “ and enter I 
must, if the girl is to be aroused and I turned the handle of the 
door and walked in. 

Helga lay, attired as she had left the deck, in an upper bunk, 
through the port-hole of which the daylight, bright with the foam, 
came and went upon her face as the vessel at one moment buried the 
thick glass of the scuttle in the green blindness of the sea and then 
lifted it, weeping and gleaming, into the air. Her head was pillowed 
on her arm ; her hair in the weak light showed as though touched by 
a dull beam of the sun. Her eyes were sealed, their long lashes put 
a delicate shading under them ; her white face wore a sweet expres- 
sion of happy serenity, and I could believe that some glad vision was 
present to her. Her lips were parted in the expression of a smile. 

There was a feeling in me as of profanity in this intrusion, and of 
wrong-doing in the obligation forced upon me of waking her from 
a peaceful, pleasant, all-important repose to face the bitter hardships 
and necessities of that time of tempest. But for my single arms the 
pump was too much, and she must be aroused. I lightly put my 
hand upon hers, and her smile was instantly more defined, as though 
my action were coincident with some phase of her dream. I pressed 
her hand ; she sighed deeply, looked at me, and instantly sat up with 
a little frown of confusion. 

“Your father begged me to enter and arouse you,” said I. “I 
was unable to make you hear by knocking. I have sounded the well, 
and there is an increase of five inches.” 

“Ah 1” she exclaimed, and sprang lightly out of her bunk. 


70 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


In silence, and with amazing despatch, seeing that a few seconds 
before she was in a deep sleep, she put on her sea-helmet, whipped 
a handkerchief round her neck, and was leading the way to the hatch 
on buoyant feet. 

On gaining the deck I discovered that the wrecked appearance of 
the ship aloft had been greatly heightened during my absence below 
by the foretop-sail having been blown into rags. It was a single sail, 
and the few long strips of it which remained blowing out horizon- 
tally from the yards stiff as crowbars gave an indescribable character 
of forlornness to the fabric. Helga glanced aloft, and immediately 
perceived that the maintop-gallant mast had been wrecked, but said 
nothing, and in a minute the pair of us were hard at work. 

I let go the brake only when my companion was too exhausted to 
continue ; but now, on sounding the well, we found that our labors 
had not decreased the water to the same extent as heretofore. It 
was impossible, however, to converse out of shelter; moreover, a 
fresh danger attended exposure on deck, for, in addition to the wild 
sweeping of green seas forward, to the indescribably violent motions 
of the bark, which threatened to break our heads or our limbs for us, 
to fling us bruised and senseless against the bulwarks if we relaxed 
for a moment our hold of what was next us — in addition to this, I 
say, there was now the deadly menace of the top-gallant mast, with 
its weight of yards, fiercely swinging and beating right over our 
heads, and poised there by the slender filaments of its rigging, which 
might part and let the whole mass fall at any moment. 

We entered the deck-house, and paused for a little while in its 
comparative silence and stagnation to exchange a few words. 

“ The water is gaining upon the ship, Mr. Tregarthen,” said Helga. 

“ I fear so,” I answered. 

“ If it should increase beyond the control of the pumps, what is 
to be done ?” she asked. “ We are without boats.” 

“ What can be done ?” cried I. “ We shall have to make some des- 
perate thrust for life — contrive something out of the hen-coop — spare 
booms — whatever is to be found.” 

“ What chance — what chance have we in such a sea as this ?” she 
exclaimed, clasping her hands and looking up at me with eyes large 
with emotion, though I found nothing of fear in the shining of them 
or in the working of her pale, sweet face. 

I had no answer to make. Indeed, it put a sort of feeling into 
the blood like madness itself even to talk of a raft with the sound in 
our ears of the sea that was raging outside. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


7l 


“And then there is my father,” she continued, “ helpless — unable 
to move — how is he to be rescued? I would lose ray life to save 
his. But what is to be done if this gale continues?” 

“His experience, should be of use to us,” said I. “Let us go and 
talk with him.” 

She opened the door of the berth, halted, stared a minute, then 
turned to me with her forefinger upon her lip. I peered, and found 
the poor man fast asleep. I believed at first that he was dead, so still 
he lay, so easy was his countenance, so white, too ; but, after watch- 
ing a moment, I spied his breast rising and falling. Helga drew 
close, and stood viewing him. A strange and moving sight was that 
swinging cot, the revelation of the death-like head within, the sway- 
ing, boyish figure of a daughter gazing with eyes of love, pity, dis- 
tress, at the sleeping, haggard face as it came and went. 

She sat down beside me. “I shall lose him soon,” said she. “But 
what is killing him? He was white and poorly yesterday ; but not 
ill as he is now.’’ 

It would have been idle to attempt any sort of courage. The 
truth was as plain to her as to me. I could find nothing better to 
say than that the gale might cease suddenly, that a large steam-frigate 
had passed us a little while before, that some vessel was sure to heave 
into sight when the weather moderated, and that meanwhile our efforts 
must be directed to keeping the vessel afloat. I could not again talk 
of the raft ; it was enough to feel the sickening tossing of the ship 
under us to render the thought of that remedy for our state horrible 
and hopeless. 

The time slowly passed. It was drawing on to one o’clock. I 
went on deck to examine the helm and to judge of the weather, then 
sounded the well, but found no material increase of water. The bark, 
however, was rolling so furiously that it was almost impossible to get 
a correct cast. Before reentering the house I sent a look round 
from the shelter of the weather bulwark to observe what materials were 
to be obtained for a raft should the weather suffer us to launch such 
a thing, and the bark founder spite of our toil. There were a number 
of spare booms securely lashed upon the top of the seamen’s deck- 
house and galley, and these, with the hen-coop and hatch covers, and 
the little casks or scuttle-butts out of which the men drank, would pro- 
vide us with what we needed. But the contemplation of death itself 
was not so dreadful to me as the prospect which this fancy of a raft 
opened. I hung crouching under the lee of the tall bulwark, gnawing 
my lip as thought after thought arose in me, and digging ray finger- 


1 2 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


nails into the palms of my hands. The suddenness of it all ! The 
being this time yesterday safe ashore, without the dimmest imagina- 
tion of what was to come — the anguish of my poor old mother — the 
perishing, as I did not doubt, of my brave comrades of the life-boat — 
then this vessel slowly taking in water, dying, as it were, by inches, 
and as doomed as though hell’s curse were upon her, unless the gale 
should cease and help come. 

I could not bear it. I started to my feet with a sense of madness 
upon me, with a wild and dreadful desire in me to show mercy to 
myself by plunging and silencing the delirious fancies of my brain 
in the wide sweep of seething waters that rushed from the very line 
of the rail of the bark as she leaned to her beam ends in the thun- 
derous trough of that instant. It was a sort of hysteria that did not 
last ; yet might I have found temptation and time in the swift pas- 
sage of it to have destroyed myself, but for God’s hand upon me, as 
I choose to believe, and to be ever thankful for ! 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE RAFT. 

How passed the rest of this the first day of my wild and danger- 
ous adventure, of Helga’s and my first day of suffering, peril, and 
romantic experience, I cannot clearly recall. A few impressions only 
survive. I remember returning to the deck-house and finding the 
captain still sleeping. I remember conversing with Helga, who 
looked me very earnestly in the face when I entered, and who, by 
some indefinable influence of voice and eye, coaxed me into speak- 
ing of my fit of horror on deck. I remember that she left me to 
obtain some food, which, it seems, was kept in one of the cabins be- 
low, and that she returned with a tin of preserved meat, a little glass 
jar of jam, a tin of biscuits, and a bottle of red wine like to what we 
had before drunk — a very pleasant, well-flavored claret ; that all the 
while we ate her father slept, which made her happy, as she said he 
needed rest, not having closed his eyes for three nights and days, 
though it was wonderful to me that he should have fallen asleep in 
such a mood of excitement and of consternation as I had left him in ; 
but as to his slumbering amid that uproar of straining timbers and 
flying waters, it is enough to say that he was a seaman. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


13 


I also recollect that throughout the remainder of the day we worked 
the pump at every two hours or thereabouts ; but the water was un- 
mistakably gaining upon the bark, and to keep her free would have 
needed the incessant plying of the pumps — both pumps at once — 
by gangs of fellows who could relieve one another and rest between. 
Helga told me that her father had given orders for a windmill pump 
to be rigged, Scandinavian fashion, but that there had been some de- 
lay, and so the bark sailed without it. I said that no windmill 
pump would have stood up half an hour in such a gale of wind as 
was blowing; but all the same, I bitterly lamented that there was 
nothing of the sort aboard, for these windmill arrangements keep the 
pumps going by the revolution of their sails, and such a thing must 
have proved inexpressibly valuable when the weather should moder- 
ate, so as to allow us to erect it. 

The captain slept far into the afternoon, but I could not observe, 
when he awoke, that he was the better for his long spell of rest. I 
entered his cabin fresh from a look round on deck, and found him 
just awake, with his eyes fixed upon his daughter, who sat slumber- 
ing upon the locker, with her back against the cabin wall, and her pale 
face bowed upon her breast. He immediately attacked me with 
questions, delivered in notes so high, penetrating, and feverish with 
hurry and alarm that they awoke Helga. We had to tell him the 
truth — I mean, that the water was gaining, but slowly, so that it must 
conquer us if the gale continued, yet we might still hope to find a 
chance for our lives by keeping the pump going. He broke into 
many passionate exclamations of distress and grief, and then was si- 
lent, with the air of one who abandons hope. 

“ There are but two, and one of them a girl,” I heard him say, 
lifting his eyes to the deck above as he spoke. 

The night was a dreadful time to look forward to. While there 
was daylight, while one could see, one’s spirits seemed to retain a 
little buoyancy ; but, speaking for myself, I dreaded the effects upon 
my mind of a second interminable time of blackness, filled with the 
horrors of the groaning and howling gale, of the dizzy motion of 
the tormented fabric, of the heart-subduing noises of waters pouring 
in thunder and beating in volcanic shocks against and over the 
struggling vessel. 

Well, there came round the hour of nine, o’clock by my watch. 
Long before, after returningffrom a spirit-breaking spell of toil at the 
pump, we had lighted the deck-house and binnacle lamps, had eaten 
our third meal that day to answer for tea or supper, and at Helga’s 


74 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


entreaty I had lain down upon the deck-house locker to sleep for one 
hour or so if I could, while she went to watch by her father and 
to keep an eye upon the ship by an occasional visit to the deck. 

We had arranged that she should awaken me at nine, that we 
should then apply ourselves afresh to the pump, that she should 
afterwards take my place upon the locker till eleven, I, meanwhile, 
seeing to her father and to the bark, and that we should thus pro- 
ceed in these alternations throughout the night. It was now nine 
o’clock. I awoke, and was looking at my watch when Helga en- 
tered from the deck. She came up to me and took my hands, and 
cried, 

“ Oh ! Mr. Tregarthen, there are some stars in the sky. I believe 
the gale is breaking.” 

Only those who have undergone the like of such experiences as 
these I am endeavoring to relate can conceive of the rapture, the new 
life her words raised in me. 

“ I praise God for your good news !” I cried, and made a step to 
the barometer to observe its indications. 

The rise of the mercury was a quarter of an inch, and this had 
happened since a little after seven. Yet, being something of a stu- 
dent of the barometer in my little way, I could have heartily wished 
the rise much more gradual. It might betoken nothing more than 
a drier quality of gale, with nothing of the old fierceness wanting. 
But then, to be sure, it might promise a shift, so that we stood a 
chance of being blown homewards, which would signify an oppor- 
tunity of preservation that must needs grow greater as we approach- 
ed the English Channel. 

I went with Helga on deck, and instantly saw the stars shining to 
windward between the edges of clouds which were flying across our 
mast-heads with the velocity of smoke. The heaven of vapor that 
had hung black and brooding over the ocean for two days was bro- 
ken up; where the sky showed it was pure, and the stars shone in 
it with a frosty brilliance. The atmosphere had wonderfully cleared ; 
the froth glanced keenly upon the hurling shadows of the seas, and 
I believed I could follow the clamorous mountainous breast of the 
ocean to the very throb of the horizon, over which the clouds were 
pouring in loose masses, scattering scud-like as they soared, but all so 
plentiful that the heavens were thick with the flying wings. 

But there was no sobering of the wind. It blew with its old 
dreadful violence, and the half-smothered bark climbed and plunged 
and rolled amid clouds of spray in a manner to make the eyes reel 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


75 


after a minute of watching her. Yet the mere sight of the stars 
served as a sup of cordial to us. We strove at the pump, and then 
Helga lay down ; and in this manner the hours passed till about four 
o’clock in the morning, when there happened a sensible decrease in 
the wind. At dawn it was still blowing hard, but long before this, 
had we had sailors, we should have been able to expose canvas, and 
start the bark upon her course. 

I stood on top of the deck-house watching the dawn break. The 
bleak gray stole over the frothing sea and turned ashen the curve of 
every running surge. To windward the ocean-line went twisting 
like a corkscrew upon the sky, and seemed to boil and wash along 
it as though it were the base of some smoking wall. There was 
nothing in sight. I searched every quarter with a passionate inten- 
sity, but there was nothing to be seen. But now the sea had greatly 
moderated, and, though the decks still sobbed with wet, it was only 
at long intervals that the foam flew forward. The bark looked 
fearfully wrecked, stranded, and sodden. All her rigging was slack, 
the decks were encumbered with the ends of ropes, the weather side 
of the main-sail had blown loose and was fluttering in rags, though 
to leeward the canvas lay furled. 

I went on to the quarter-deck and sounded the well. Practice 
had rendered me expert, and the cast, I did not doubt, gave me the 
true depth, and I felt all the blood in me rush to my heart when 
I beheld such an indication of increase as was the same as hearing 
one’s funeral knell rung, or of a verdict of death pronounced upon 
one. 

I entered the deck-house with my mind resolved, and seated my- 
self at the table over against where Helga lay sleeping upon the 
locker, to consider a little before arousing her. She showed very 
wan, almost haggard, by the morning light ; her parted lips were 
pale, and she wore a restless expression even in her sleep. It might 
be that my eyes being fixed upon her face aroused her ; she suddenly 
looked at me; and then sat up. Just then a gleam of misty sunshine 
swept the little windows. 

“ The bad weather is gone 1” she cried. 

“ It is still too bad for us, though,” said I. 

“ Does the wind blow from the land ?” she asked. 

“Aye ! and freshly, too.” 

She was now able to perceive the meaning in my face, and asked 
me anxiously if anything new had happened to alarm me. I an- 
swered by giving her the depth of water I had found in the hold. 


76 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


She clasped her hands and started to her feet, but sat again on my 
making a little gesture. 

“ Miss Nielsen,” said I, “ the bark is taking in water very much 
faster than we shall be able to pump it out. We may go on ply- 
ing the pump, but the labor can only end in breaking our hearts 
and wasting precious time that might be employed to some purpose. 
We must look the truth in the face and make up our minds to let 
the vessel go, and to do our best, with God’s help, to preserve our 
lives.” 

“ What ?” she asked, in a low voice, that indicated awe rather than 
fear, and I noticed the little twitch and spasm of her mouth swiftly 
vanish in an expression of resolution. 

“ We must go to work,” said I, “ and construct a raft, then get 
everything in readiness to sway it overboard. The weather may en- 
able us to do this. I pray so. It is our only hope, should nothing 
to help us come along.” 

“ But my father ?” 

“ We shall have to get him out of his cabin on to the raft.” 

“ But how ? But how ?” she cried, with an air of wildness. “ He 
cannot move!” 

“ If we are to be saved, he must be saved, at all events,” said I. 
“ What, then, can be done but to lower him in his cot, as he lies, on 
to the deck and so drag him to the gangway and sling him on to 
the raft by a tackle ?” 

“ Yes,” she said, “ that can be done. It will have to be done.” 
She reflected, with her hands tightly locked upon her brow. “ How 
long do you think,” she asked, “ will the Anine remain afloat if we 
leave the pumps untouched ?” 

“ Your father will know,” said I. “ Let us go to him.” 

Captain Nielsen sat erect in his cot munching a biscuit. 

“ Ha !” he cried, as we entered. “ We are to have pleasant weather. 
There was some sunshine upon that port just now. What says the 
barometer, Mr. Tregarthen?” Then, contracting his brows while he 
peered at his daughter as though he had not obtained a view of her 
before, he exclaimed, “ What is the matter, Helga ? What have you 
come to tell me?” 

“ Father,” she answered, sinking her head a little and so looking 
at him through her eyelashes, “ Mr. Tregarthen believes, and I cannot 
doubt it, for there is the sounding-rod to tell the story, that water is 
fast entering the Anine , and that we must lose no time to prepare 
to leave her.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


11 


“ What !” he almost shrieked, letting fall his biscuit and grasping 
the edge of the cot with his emaciated hands, and turning his body 
to us from the waist, leaving his legs in their former posture as 
though he were paralyzed from the hip down. “ The Anine sink- 
ing 2 prepare to leave her 2 Why, you have neglected the pump, 
then !” 

“ No, captain, no,” I answered. “ Our toil has been as regular 
as we have had strength for. Already your daughter has done too 
much; look at her!” I cried, pointing to the girl. “Judge with 
your father’s eye for how much longer she is capable of holding 
out !” 

“ The pump must be manned !” he exclaimed, in such another 
shrieking note as he had before delivered. “ The Anine must not 
sink ; she is all I have in the world. My child will be left to starve ! 
Oh, she has strength enough. Helga, the gentleman does not know 
your strength and courage! And you, sir — you, Mr. Tregarthen — 
Ach ! God ! You will not let your courage fail you — you who came 
here on a holy and beautiful errand — no, no ! you will not let your 
courage fail you, now that the wind is ceasing and the sun has broken 
forth and the worst is past 2” 

Helga looked at me. 

“ Captain Nielsen,” said I, “ if there were a dozen of us we might 
hope to keep your ship long enough afloat to give us a chance of be- 
ing rescued ; but not twelve, not fifty men could save her for you. 
The tempest has made a sieve of her, and what we have now to do 
is to construct a raft while we have time and opportunity, and to be 
ceaseless in our prayer that the weather may suffer us to launch it 
and to exist upon it until we are succored.” 

He gazed at me with a burning eye, and breathed as though he 
must presently suffocate. 

“ Oh ! but for a few hours’ use of my limbs !” he cried, lifting his 
trembling hands. “I would show you both how the will can be made 
to master the body’s weakness. Must I lie here without power?” 
and as he said these words he grasped again the edge of his cot, and 
writhed so that I was almost prepared to see him heave himself out; 
but the agony of the wrench was too much ; his face grew whiter 
still, he groaned low, and lay back, with his brow glistening with 
sweat-drops. 

“ Oh, father !” cried Helga, “ bear with us ! Indeed, it is as Mr. 
Tregarthen says. I feared it last night, and this morning has made 
me sure. We must not think of the ship, but of ourselves, and of 


78 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


you, father dear — of you, my poor, dear father!” She broke off 
with a sob. 

I waited until he had recovered a little from the torment he had 
caused himself, and then gently, but with a manner that let him 
know I was resolved, began to reason with him. He lay, apparently, 
listening apathetically ; but his nostrils, wide with breathing, and the 
hurried motions of his breast were warrant enough of the state of 
his mind. While I addressed him Helga went out, and presently 
returned with the sounding-rod, dark with the wet fresh from the 
well. He turned his feverish eyes upon it, but merely shook his 
head, and lightly wrung his hands. 

“ Father, you see it for yourself !” she cried. 

“ Miss Nielsen,” said I, “ we are wasting precious minutes. Will 
your father tell you what depth of water his ship must take in to 
founder ?” 

He, poor fellow, made no response, but continued to stare at the 
rod in her hand as though his intelligence on a sudden was all 
abroad. 

“ Shall we go to work ?” said I. She looked at her father wist- 
fully. “ Come,” I exclaimed, “ we know we are right. We must 
make an effort to save ourselves. Are not our lives our first consid- 
eration ?” 

I stepped to the door ; as I put my hand to it, Captain Nielsen 
cried : “ If you do not save the ship, how will you save yourselves ?” 

“ We must at once put some sort of raft together,” said I, halting. 

“A raft ! in this sea !” he clasped his hands and uttered a low, 
mocking laugh, that was more shocking in him than the maddest ex- 
plosion of temper could have shown. 

I could no longer linger to hear his objections. Helga might be 
very dear to him, but his ship stood first in his mind, and I had no 
idea of breaking my heart at the pump and then of being drowned 
after all. My hope was indeed a forlorn one, but it was a chance 
also ; whereas I knew that the ship would give us no chance what- 
ever. Besides, our making ready for the worst would not signify 
that we should abandon the vessel until her settling forced us over 
the side. And was the gentle, heroic Helga to perish without a 
struggle on my part, because her father clung with a sick man’s cra- 
ziness — which in health he might be quick to denounce — to this 
poor, tempest-strained bark that was all he had in the world ? 

I went out and on to the deck, and was standing thinking a minute 
upon the raft and how we should set about it, when Helga joined me. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


79 


“ He is too ill to be reasonable,” she exclaimed. 

“ Yes,” said I, “ but we will save him, and ourselves too, if we 
can. Let us lose no more time. Do you observe that the wind has 
sensibly decreased even while we have been talking in your father’s 
cabin ? The sky has opened more yet to windward, and the seas 
are running with much less weight.” 

As I spoke the sun flashed into a rift in the vapor sweeping down 
the eastern heaven, and the glance of the foam to the splendor, and 
the sudden brightening of the cloud-shadowed sea into blue, ani- 
mated me like some new-born hope, and was almost as invigorating 
to my spirits as though my eyes had fallen upon the gleam of a sail 
heading our way. 

I should but weary you to relate, step by step, how we went to 
work to construct a raft. The motion of the deck was still very 
violent, but it found us now as seasoned as though we had kept the 
sea for years ; and, indeed, the movement was becoming mere child’s- 
play after the tossing of the night. A long hour of getting such 
booms as we wanted off the sailors’ house on to the deck, and of col- 
lecting other materials for our needs, was not, by a very great deal, 
so exhausting as ten minutes at the pump. We broke off a little 
after nine o’clock to get some food, and to enable Helga to see to 
her father ; and now the cast we took with the sounding-rod advised 
us, with most bitter significance of indication, that, even though my 
companion and I had strength to hold to the pump for a whole watch 
— I mean for four hours at a spell — the water would surely, if but a 
little more slowly, vanquish us in the end. Indeed, there was no 
longer question that the vessel had, in some parts of her, been seri- 
ously strained, and, though I held my peace, ray sincere conviction 
was that, unless some miracle arrested the ingress of the water, she 
would not be afloat at five o’clock that day. 

By one we had completed the raft, and it lay against the main- 
hatch, ready to be swayed over the side and launched. I had some 
small knowledge of boat-building, having acquired what I knew from 
a small yard down past the life-boat house at Tintrenale, where boats 
were built, and where I had killed many an hour, pipe in mouth, 
watching and asking questions, and even lending a hand, and in con- 
structing this raft I found my slender boat-building experiences very 
useful. First, we made a frame of four stout studding-sail booms, 
which we securely lashed to four empty casks, two of which lay 
handy to our use, while of the other two, one was found in the gal. 
ley, a third full of slush, and the other in the cabin below where the 


80 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


provisions were stored. We decked the frame with booms, of which 
there was a number as I previously said, stacked on top of the sail- 
ors’ deck-house, and to this we securely lashed planking, to which 
we attached some hatchway covers, binding the whole with turn upon 
turn of rope. To improve our chance of being seen, I provided for 
setting up a top-gallant-studding-sail boom as a mast, at the head of 
which we should be able to show a color. I also took care to hedge 
the sides with a little bulwark of life-lines lest the raft should be 
swept. There were many interstices in this fabric fit for holding a 
stock of provisions and water. 

I had no fear of its not floating high, nor of its not holding to- 
gether; but it would be impossible to express the heaviness of heart 
with which I labored at this thing. The raft had always been the 
most dreadful nightmare of the sea to my imagination. The stories 
of the sufferings it had been the theatre of were present to my mind 
as I worked, and again and again they would cause me to break off 
and send a despairing look round ; but never a sail showed ; the 
blankness was that of the heavens. 

We had half-masted a second Danish ensign after coming out from 
breaking our fast, and one needed but to look at the breezy rippling 
of its large folds to know that the wind was rapidly becoming scant. 
By one o’clock, indeed, it was blowing no more than a pleasant air 
of wind, still out of the north-east. The stormy, smoke-like clouds 
of the morning were gone, and the sky was now mottled by little 
heaps of prismatic vapor that sailed slowly under a higher delicate 
shading of cloud, widely broken, and showing much clear liquid blue, 
and suffering the sun to shine very steadily. There was a long swell 
rolling out of the north-east, but the brows were so wide apart that 
there was no violence whatever in the swaying of the bark upon it. 
The wind crisped these swinging folds of water, and the surface of 
the ocean scintillated with lines of small seas crisping, with merry 
curlings, into foam. But it was fine-weather water, and the barome- 
ter had risen greatly, and I could now believe that there was nothing 
more in the rapidity of its indications than a promise of a pleasant 
day and of light winds. 

I could have done nothing without Helga. Her activity, her in- 
telligence, her spirit were amazing ; not, indeed, only because she was 
a girl, but because she was a girl who had undergone a day and two 
frightful nights of peril and distress, who had slept but little, whose 
labors at the pump might have exhausted a seasoned sailor. She 
seemed to know exactly what to do, was wise in every suggestion, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


81 


and I could never glance at her face without finding the sweetness 
of it rendered noble by the heroism of the heart that showed in her 
firm mouth, her composed countenance, and steadfast, determined 
gaze. 

At times we would break off to sound the well, and never without 
finding a fresh nimbleness coming into our hands and feet, a wilder 
desire of hurry penetrating our spirits from the assurance of the rod. 
Steadily, inch by inch, the water was gaining, and already at this hour 
of one o’clock it was almost easy to guess the depth of it by the 
sluggishness of the vessel’s rolling, by the drowning character of her 
languid recovery from the slant of the swell. I felt tolerably confi- 
dent, however, that she would keep afloat for some hours yet, and 
God knows we could not have too much time granted to us, for there 
was much to be done ; the raft to be launched and provisioned, and 
the hardest part was yet to come — I mean the bringing of the sick 
captain from his cabin and hoisting him over the side. 

At one o’clock we broke off again to refresh ourselves with food 
and drink, and Helga saw to her father. For my part, I would not 
enter his berth. I dreaded his expostulations and reproaches, and, 
indeed, I may say that I shrank from even the sight of him, so 
grievous were his white face and dying manner — so depressing to me, 
who could not look at the raft and then turn my eyes upon the ocean 
without guessing that I was as fully a dying man as he, and that, 
when the sun set this night, it might go down forever upon us. 

There was but one way of getting the raft over, and that was by 
the winch and a tackle at the main yard-arm. Helga said she would 
take the tackle aloft, but I ran my eye over her boy-clad figure with 
a smile, and said, “ No.” She was, indeed, a better sailor than I, but 
it would be strange, indeed, if I was unable to secure a block to a 
yard-arm. We braced in the main-yard until the arm of it was fair 
over the gangway, and I then took the tackle aloft and attached the 
block by the tail of it. 

I lay over the yard for a minute or two while I looked round ; but 
the sea brimmed unbroken towards the sky, and I descended, again 
and again shuddering without control over myself, as I gazed at the 
little fabric of the raft and contrasted it with the size of the ship 
that was slowly foundering, and then with the great sea upon whose 
surface it would presently be afloat — the only object, perhaps, under 
the eye of heaven for leagues and leagues ! 

Our business now was to get the raft over the side. I should have 
to fatigue and perhaps perplex you with technicalities exactly to ex- 
6 


82 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


plain our management of it. Enough if I say that, by hooking on 
the lower block of the tackle to ropes which formed slings for the 
raft, and by taking the hauling part to the winch, we very easily 
swayed the structure clear of the bulwark-rail — for you must know 
that the winch, with its arrangements of handles, cogs, and pawls, is 
a piece of shipboard mechanism with which a couple of persons may 
do as much as a dozen might be able to achieve using their arms 
only. 

When the raft was high enough Helga stood by the winch ready 
to slacken away on my giving the word of command, while I went 
to a line which held the fabric over the deck. This line I eased off 
until the raft had swung fairly over the water, and then called to 
Helga to slacken away, and the raft sank, and in a minute or two 
was water-borne, riding upon the swell alongside, and buoyed by the 
casks even higher above the surface than I had dared hope. 

“ Now, Miss Nielsen !” cried I. 

“ Oh, pray, call me Helga,” she broke in ; “ it is my name : it is 
short. I seem to answer to it more readily, and in this time, this 
dreadful time, I could wish to have it, and none other!” 

“ Then, Helga,” said I, even in such a moment as this feeling my 
heart warm to the brave, good, gentle little creature as I pronounced 
the word, “ we must provision the raft without delay. Our essential 
needs will be fresh water and biscuit. What more have you in your 
provision-room below ?” 

“ Come with me !” said she ; and we ran into the deck-house and 
descended the hatch, leaving the raft securely floating alongside, not 
only in the grip of the yard-arm tackle, which the swaying of the 
vessel had fully overhauled, but in the hold of the line with which 
we had slacked the structure over the rail. 

It was still dark enough below ; but when we opened the door of 
the berth, in which, as 1 have told you, the cabin provisions were 
stowed, we found the sunshine upon the scuttle or port-hole, and the 
apartment lay clear in the light. In about twenty minutes, and after 
some three or four journeys, we had conveyed on deck as much pro- 
visions as might serve to keep three persons for about a month : 
cans of meat, some hams, several tins of biscuit, cheese, and other 
matters, which I need not catalogue. But we had started the fresh 
water in the scuttle-butts that they might be emptied to serve as 
floats for the raft, and now we had to find a cask or receptacle for 
drinking-water, and to fill it, too, from the stock in the hold. Here I 
should have been at a loss but for Helga, who knew where the bark’s 


/ 


4 huge black rat flashed from my shoulder. ‘ If there be truth in the proverb said f ‘ we need no surer hint of ivhat is 

cowling than t/ie behavior of that rat »’ ” 







THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


83 


fresh water was stowed. Again we entered the cabin or provision- 
room, and returned with some jars whose contents we emptied — 
vinegar, I believe it was, but the hurry my mind was then in rendered 
it weak in its reception of small impressions ; these we filled with 
fresh water from a tank conveniently stowed in the main hatchway, 
and as I filled them Helga carried them on deck. 

While we were below at this work I bade her listen. 

“ Yes, I hear it !” she cried ; “ it is the water in the hold.” 

With every sickly lean of the bark you could hear the water in- 
side of her seething among the cargo as it cascaded now to port and 
now to starboard. 

“ Helga, she cannot live long,” said I. “ I believe, but for the hiss- 
ing of the water, we should hear it bubbling into her.” 

I handed her up the last of the jars, and grasped the coaming of 
the hatch to clamber on to the deck, for the cargo came high. 
As I did this, something seemed to touch and claw me upon the back, 
and a huge black rat of the size of a kitten flashed from my shoulder 
on to the deck and vanished in a breath. Helga screamed, and, in- 
deed, for the moment, ray own nerves were not a little shaken, for I 
distinctly felt the wire-like whisker of the horrible creature brush 
my cheek as it sprang from my shoulder. 

“ If there be truth in the proverb,” said I, “ we need no surer hint 
of what is coming than the behavior of that rat.” 

The girl shuddered, and gazed, with eyes bright with alarm, into 
the hold, recoiling as she did so. I believe the prospect of drifting 
about on a raft was less terrible to her than the idea of a second rat 
leaping upon one or the other of us. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

ADRIFT. 

It was necessary that we should have everything in readiness be- 
fore we carried poor Captain Nielsen out of his cabin. I unshipped 
the gangway, and watching an opportunity as the swell lifted the 
raft against the side of the bark stooping to it, I sprang ; but I could 
not have imagined the weight and volume of the swell until I had 
gained the frail platform. Indeed, one could feel that the wrath 
kindled by the tempest still lived in the deep bosom of the ocean. 


84 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


It was like a stern, revengeful breathing; but the wind was light, 
and the water but delicately brushed, and it was easy to foresee that 
if no more wind blew the swell would have greatly flattened down 
by sunset. Yet the manner in which the hull and the raft came to- 
gether terrified me with a notion of our contrivance going to pieces. 
I called to Helga, as she threw to me or handed the several parcels 
and articles we had collected upon the deck, that there was not a 
moment of time to waste — that we must get her father on to the 
raft without delay ; and then, when I had hastily stowed the last of 
the things, I sprang aboard again, and was going straight to the cap- 
tain’s berth, when I suddenly stopped and exclaimed : “ First, how 
is he to be removed ?” 

She eyed me piteously. Perhaps her seamanship did not reach 
to that height ; or maybe her fear that we should cause her father 
pain impaired her perception of what was to be done. 

“ Let me think now,” said I. “ It is certain that he must be low- 
ered to the deck as he lies in his cot. Does he swing by hooks ? I 
did not observe.” 

“ Yes,” she answered ; “ what you would call the clews come to- 
gether to a point as in a hammock, and spread at the foot and 
head.” 

“ Then there must be iron eyes in the upper deck,” cried I, “ to 
receive the hooks. Now see here : we shall have to get a sling at 
each end of the cot, attach a line to it, the ends of which we will 
pass through the eyes, and when this is done we will cut away the 
clews and so lower him. Yes, that will do,” said I. “I have it,” 
and looking about me for such a thickness of rope as I needed, I 
overhauled some fathoms, passed my knife through the length, and 
together we hastened to the captain’s berth. 

“ What is it now ?” he asked, in a feeble voice, as we entered. 

“ Everything is ready, Captain Nielsen,” said I ; “ there is no time 
to lose. The cargo is washing about in the hold, and the ship has 
not another hour of life left in her.” 

“ What is it that you want ?” said he, looking dully at the coil of 
rope I held in my hand. 

“ Father, we are here to carry you to the raft.” 

“ To the raft !” he exclaimed, with an air of bewilderment, and 
then he added, while I noticed a little color of temper enter his 
cheeks: “I have nothing to do with your raft. It was in your 
power to save the poor Anine. If she is to founder, I will go down 
with her.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


85 


So saying, he folded his arms upon his bosom in a posture of res- 
olution, viewing me with all the severity his sickness would suffer 
his eyes to express. Nevertheless, there was a sort of silliness in 
the whole manner of him which might have persuaded the most 
heedless observer that the poor fellow was rapidly growing less and 
less responsible for his behavior. Had he been a powerful man, or, 
indeed, possessed the use of his extremities, I should have dreaded 
what is termed a “ scene.” As it was, nothing remained but to treat 
him as a child, to tackle him, with all tenderness but as swiftly as 
possible, and to get him over the side. 

There was a dreadful expression of distress in Helga’s face when 
she looked at him ; but her glances at me were very full of assurance 
that she was of my mind, and that she would approve and be with 
me in sympathy in whatever I resolved to do. Whipping out my 
knife, I cut lengths off the rope I held to make slings of. I carried 
one of these slings to the cot and passed it over the end. The cap- 
tain extended his hand, and attempted to thrust me aside. The child- 
like weakness of that trembling push would, in a time of less wretch- 
edness and peril than this, have unnerved me with pity. 

“ Bear with me ! Be yourself, captain ! Show yourself the true 
Danish sailor that you are at heart — for Helga’s sake !” I exclaimed. 

He covered his eyes and sobbed. 

I secured the slings to the cot, and, until we lowered him to the 
deck, he held his face hidden in his hands. I rove two lengths of 
line through the iron eyes at which the cot slung, in the manner I 
had described to Helga, and when the weight of the cot was on 
these lines we belayed one end, holding by the other. I then passed 
my knife through the “ crow’s-feet,” as it would be called, or thin 
lines which supported the cot, and, going to the rope I had belayed, 
bade Helga lower her end as I lowered mine, and the cot descended 
safely to the deck. The girl then came round to the head of the 
cot, and together we dragged it out of the house on to the deck. 

Saving a little wrench when we hauled the cot over the coaming 
of the deck-house door, the poor man was put to no pain. It was 
merciful indeed that he should have lain ill in the deck-house, for 
had he occupied a cabin below I cannot imagine how we should 
have got him out on to the deck without killing him with the an- 
guish which we should have been forced by our efforts to cause him. 

When we had got him to the gangway I sprang on to the raft 
and caught hold of the block that dangled at the extremity of the 
yard-arm tackle. With this I returned to the bark, and, just as we 


86 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


had got the raft over, so did we sway the poor captain on to her. I 
got on to the raft to receive him as Helga lowered the cot. He de- 
scended gently, and on my crying “ Let go !” she swiftly released the 
line, and the tackle overhauled itself to the roll of the vessel. 

I remember exclaiming “ Thank God !” when this job was ended, 
and I had unhooked the block, as though the worst was over ; and, 
indeed, in the mere business of abandoning the bark, the worst had 
ended with the bestowal of the sick and helpless captain on the raft. 
But what was now to begin? My “Thank God !” seemed to sound 
like a piece of irony in my heart when I looked from the deep, wet, 
gleaming side of the leaning hull waving her wrecked spars in the 
reddening light of the sun — when I looked from her, I say, to sea- 
wards, where the flowing lines of the lifting and falling swell were 
running bald and foamless into the south-west sky. 

Helga came to the gangway and called to know if all were well 
with her father. 

“ All is well,” I answered. “ Come, now, Helga ! There is noth- 
ing to detain us. We shall be wise to cast adrift from the bark. 
She is very much down by the head, and the next dip may be her 
last.” 

“ A few minutes cannot signify,” she cried. “ There are one or 
two things I should like to bring with me. I wish to possess them, 
if we are preserved.” 

“ Make haste, then !” I called. She disappeared, and I turned to 
the captain. He looked up at me out of his cot with eyes in which 
all the feverish fire of the morning was quenched. 

“ Is Helga remaining in the bark ?” he asked, listlessly. 

“ God forbid !” cried I. “ She will be with us in a minute or 
two.” 

“ It is a cruel desertion,” said he. “ Poor Anine, you were to 
have been kept afloat !” 

It was idle to reason with him. He was clothed as I had found 
him when I had first seen him — in a waistcoat and serge coat, and a 
shawl round his neck; but he was without a hat — a thing to be 
overlooked at such a time as this — and the lower part of him was 
protected only by the blankets he lay under. There was still time 
to supply his requirements. I had noticed his wide-awake and a 
long cloak hanging in his berth, and I immediately sprang on board, 
rushed aft, procured them, and returned. Helga was still below. I 
put the hat on the captain’s head and clasped the cloak over his 
shoulders, fretting over the girl’s absence, for every minute was com- 


As 1 spoke she (/rasped her dress , and with a hound gained the raft. 








THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 87 

municating a deadlier significance to the languid, sickly, dying mo- 
tions of the fast-drowning hull. 

I think about ten minutes had passed since she left the bark’s side 
to go to her cabin, when, bringing my eyes away from the sea, into 
whose eastern quarter I had been gazing with some wild hope or fan- 
cy in me of a sail down there — though it proved no more than a 
feather-tip of cloud — I saw Helga in the gangway. I say Helga, but 
for some moments I did not know her. I started and stared as if 
she had been a ghost. Instead of the boyish figure to which my 
sight was already used, there stood in the aperture between the bul- 
warks, which we call the gangway, a girl who looked at least half a 
head taller than the Helga who had been my associate. I might 
have guessed at once that this appearance of stature in her was due 
to her gown, but as I did not suspect that she had gone to change 
her dress, her suggestion of increased height completed the astonish- 
ment and perplexity with which I regarded her. She stood on the 
leaning and swaying side of the bark, as perfect a figure of a maiden 
as mortal eyes could wish to rest on. Her dress was of dark-blue serge 
that clung to her ; she also wore a cloth jacket, thinly edged about the 
neck and where it buttoned with fur, and upon her head was a tur- 
ban-shaped hat of seal-skin, the dark, glossy shade of which bright- 
ened her short hair into a complexion of the palest gold. She held 
a parcel in her hand, and called to me to take it from her. I did 
so, and cried, 

“ You will not be able to jump from the gangway. Get into the 
fore-chains, and I will endeavor to haul the raft up to you.” 

But even as I spoke she grasped her dress, disclosed her little feet, 
and with a bound gained the raft as it rose with the swell, yielding 
on her knees as she struck the platform with the grace that nothing 
but the teaching of Old Ocean could have communicated to her 
limbs. 

“ Thank God, you are here !” I cried, catching her by the hand. 
“ I was growing uneasy — in another minute I should have sought 
you.” 

She faintly smiled, and then turned eagerly to her father. 

“ I have mother’s portrait,” said she, pointing to the parcel, “ and 
her Bible. I would not bring away more. If we are to perish, they 
will go with us.” 

He looked at her with a lack-lustre eye, and in a low voice ad- 
dressed a few words to her in Danish. She answered in that tongue, 
glancing down at her dress, and then at me, and added, in English, 


88 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“It was time, father. The hard work is over. I may be a girl 
now and looking along the sea she sighed bitterly. 

Her father brought his knitted hands together to his brow, and 
never could I have imagined the like of the look of mental anguish 
that was on his face as he did this. But what I am here narrating 
did not occupy above a minute or two. Indeed, a longer delay than 
this was not to have been suffered if we desired the raft to hold to- 
gether. I let go the line that held the little structure to the bark, 
and getting the small studding-sail boom over — that is, the boom we 
had shipped to serve as a signal mast — I thrust with it, and, Helga 
helping me, we got the raft clear of the side of the vessel. The lee- 
wardly swell on which we rode did the rest for us, and not a little 
rejoiced was I to find our miserable fabric gradually increasing its 
distance from the Anine ; for if the bark foundered with us close 
alongside we stood to be swamped in the vortex, the raft scattered, 
and ourselves left to drown. 

It now wanted about twenty minutes to sundown. A weak air 
still blew, but the few clouds that still lived in the heavens floated 
overhead apparently motionless ; yet the swell continued large, to 
our sensations at least, upon that flat structure, and the slope of the 
platform rapidly grew so distressing and fatiguing to our limbs that 
we were glad to sit, and obtain what refreshment we could from a 
short rest. 

Among the things we had brought with us was the bull’s-eye 
lamp, together with a can of oil, a parcel of meshes, and some luci- 
fer matches. I said to Helga, 

“ We should step or set up our mast before it grows dark.” 

“Why?” she inquired. “The flag we hoist will not be seen in 
the dark ” — knowing that the mast was there for no other purpose 
than to display a flag on. 

“ But we ought to light the lamp and mast-head it,” said I, “ and 
keep it burning all night — if God suffers us to live through the 
night. Who can tell what may come along ? — what vessel invisible 
to us may perceive the light ?” 

She answered quickly, “ Yes. Your judgment is clearer than mine. 
I will help you to set up the mast.” 

Her father again addressed her in Danish. She answered him, 
and then said to me, “ My father asks why we are without a sail ?” 

“ I thought of a sail,” I replied, speaking as I set about to erect 
the mast, “ but without wind it could not serve us, and with wind 
it would blow away like a cobweb. It would have occupied too 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


89 


much time to rig and securely provide for a sail. Besides, our hopes 
could never be in the direction of such a thing. We must be picked 
up — there is no other chance for us.” 

The captain made no response, but sat, propped upon his pillows, 
motionless, his eyes fixed upon the bark. 

The sun had sunk, but a strong scarlet yet glowed in the western 
sky by the time we had erected and stayed the spar. I then lighted 
the lamp and ran it aloft by means of a line and a little block which 
I had taken care to throw into the raft. This finished, we seated 
ourselves. 

There was now nothing more to be done but watch and pray. 
This was the most solemn and dreadful moment that had as yet en- 
tered into the passage of our fearful and astonishing experience. In 
the hurry and agitation of leaving the bark there had been scarcely 
room for pause. All that we could think of was how quickly to get 
away, how speedily to equip and launch the raft, how to get Cap- 
tain Nielsen over, and the like; but all this was ended. We could 
now think, and I felt as if my heart had been suddenly crushed in me 
as I sat on the slanting falling and rising platform viewing the bark, 
that lay painted in clear black lines against the fast-dimming glow 
in the west. 

Helga sat close against her father’s cot. So far as I was able to 
distinguish her face, there was profound grief in it and a sort of dis- 
may, but no fear. Her gaze was steady and the expression of her 
mouth firm. Her father kept his eyes rooted upon his ship. I over- 
heard her address him once or twice in Danish, but getting no re- 
ply, she sighed heavily and held her peace. I was too exhausted in 
body and spirits to desire to speak. I remember that I sat, or rather 
squatted, Lascar-fashion, upon the hatch-cover that somewhat raised 
the platform of the raft, with my hands clasped upon my shins and 
my chin on a level with my knees ; and in this posture I continued 
for some time motionless, watching the Anine and waiting fftr her 
to sink, and realizing our shocking situation to the degree of that 
heart-crushing sensation in me which I have mentioned. I was ex- 
actly clad as I had been when I boarded the bark out of the life- 
boat. Never once, indeed, from the hour of my being in the vessel 
down to the present moment had I removed my oil-skins, saving my 
sou’-wester, which I would take from my head when I entered the 
cabin, and I recollect thinking that it was better for me to be heavi- 
ly than thinly clad, because, being a stout swimmer, a light dress 
would help me to a bitter long battle for life, whereas the clothes I 


90 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


had on must make the struggle brief and speedily drag me down 
into peace, which was, indeed, all that I could bring my mind to 
dwell upon now, for, when I sent my glance from the raft to the 
darkling ocean, I felt hopeless. 

The rusty hectic died out. The night came along in a clear dusk 
with a faint sighing of wind over the raft every time the swell threw 
her up. There was a silver curl of moon in the south-west, but she 
was without power to drop so much as a flake of her light into the 
dark shadow of water under her. Yet the starlight was in the gloom, 
and it was not so dark but that I could see Helga’s face in a sort of 
glimmer, and the white outline of the cot and the configuration of 
the raft upon the water in dusky strokes. 

The bark floated at about a cable’s length distant from us, a dark 
mass, rolling in a strangling manner, as I might know by the sickly 
slide of the stars in the squares of her rigging and along the pallid 
lines of the canvas stowed upon her yards. There was more tenacity 
of life in her than I should have believed possible, and I said to 
Helga, 

“ If this raft were a boat, I would board the bark and set her on 
fire. She may float through the night, for who is to know but that 
one of her worst leaks may have got choked, and the blaze she would 
make might bring us help.” 

The captain uttered some exclamation in Danish in a small but 
vehement and shrill tone. He had not spoken for above an hour, 
and I had believed him sleeping, or dying and speechless. 

“ What floes he say ?” I called across softly to Helga. 

“ That the Anine might have been saved had we stood by her,” 
she answered, struggling, as I could hear by the tremor in her voice, 
to control her accents. 

“ No, no !” said I, almost gruffly ; I fear, with the mood that was 
upon me of helplessness, despair, and the kind of rage that comes 
with perception that one is doomed to die like a rat, without a 
chance, without a soul of all those one loves knowdng one’s fate. 
“ No, no !” I cried, “ the Anine was not to be saved by us two, nor 
by twenty like us, Helga. You know that, for it is like making me 
responsible for our situation here to doubt it.” 

“ I do not doubt it,” she answered, firmly and reproachfully. 

Captain Nielsen muttered in his native tongue ; but I did not in- 
quire what he said, and the hush of the great ocean night, with its 
delicate threading of complaining wind, fell upon us. 

My temper of despair was not to be soothed by recollection of 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


91 


this time yesterday, by perception of the visible evidence of God’s 
mercy in this tranquillity of sky and sea at a time when, but for the 
change of weather, we had certainly been doomed. I was young ; I 
passionately desired to live. Had death been the penalty of the life- 
boat attempt, I might, had time been granted me, contemplated my 
end with the fortitude that springs from the sense of having done 
well. But what was heroic in this business had disappeared out of 
it when the life-boat capsized and left me safe on board. It was 
now no more than a vile passage of prosaic shipwreck, with its at- 
tendent horror of lingering death, and nothing noble in what had 
been done, or that might yet have to be done, to prop up my spirits. 
Thus I sat full of wretchedness, and miserably thinking, mechani- 
cally eying the dusky heap of bark ; then breaking away from my 
afflicting reverie, I stood up, holding by the mast, to carefully sweep 
the sea, with a prayer for the sight of the colored gleams of a steam- 
er’s lights, since there was nothing to be expected in the way of sail 
in this calm that was upon the water. 

I was thus occupied, when I was startled by a strange cry — I can- 
not describe it. It resembled the moan of a wild creature wounded 
to death, but with a human note in it that made the sound something 
not to be imagined. For an instant I believed it came from the sea, 
till I saw by the dim light of the star-shine the figure of Captain 
Nielsen, in a sitting posture, pointing with the whole length of his 
arm in the direction of his bark. I looked, and found the black 
mass of hull gone, and nothing showing but the dark lines of spars 
and rigging, that melted out upon my sight as I watched. A noise 
of rending, intermingled with the shock of an explosion, came from 
where she had disappeared. It signified no more than the blowing 
up of the decks as she sank ; but the star-studded vastness of gloom 
made the sound appalling beyond language to convey. 

“ Help !” cried Hefga ; “ my father is dying.” 

I gained the side of the cot in a stride and kneeled by him, but 
there was no more to be seen of his face than the mere faint white- 
ness of it, and I could not tell whether his eyes were open or not. 
Imagining, but scarcely hoping, that a dram might put some life 
into the poor fellow, I lowered the bull’s-eye lamp from the mast- 
head to seek for one of the jars of spirits we had stowed, but when 
we came to put the tin pannikin to his lips we found his teeth set. 

“ He is not dead, Helga,” I cried, “ he is in a fit. If he were dead 
his jaw would drop,” and this I supposed, though I knew little of 
death in those days. 


92 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


I flashed the bull’s-eye upon his face, and observed that though 
his eyes were open the pupils were upturned and hidden. This, with 
the whiteness of the skin and the emaciation of the lineaments, made 
a ghastly picture of his countenance, and the hysteric sob that Helga 
uttered as she looked made me grieve that I should have thrown the 
light upon her father. 

I mast-headed the lamp again, and crouched by the side of the cot 
talking to Helga across the recumbent form in it. Who could re- 
member what was said at such a time ? I weakly essayed to cheer 
her, but soon gave up, for here was the very figure of Death himself 
lying between us, and there was death awaiting us in the black in- 
visible folds in which we swung ; and what had I to say that could 
help her heart at such a time? Occasionally I would stand erect 
and peer around. The weak wind that went moaning past us as the 
raft rose to the liquid heave had the chili in it of the ocean in Octo- 
ber, and fearing that Helga’s jacket did not sufficiently protect her, 
I pulled off my oil-skin coat — there is no warmer covering for ordi- 
nary apparel — and induced her to put it on. Her father remained 
motionless, but by stooping my ear to his mouth I could catch the 
noise of his breathing as it hissed through his clinched teeth. Yet 
it was a sort of breathing that would make one expect to hear it die 
out in a final sigh at any minute. 

I mixed a little spirit and water, and gave it to the girl, and obliged 
her to swallow the draught, and begged her to eat for the sake of 
the life and heart food would give her; but she said “No,” and her 
frequent silent sobbing silenced me on that head, for how could one, 
grieving as she did, swallow food ? I filled the pannikin for myself 
and emptied it, and ate a biscuit and a piece of cheese, which were 
near my hand in an interstice of the raft, and then lay down near the 
cot, supporting my head on my elbow. Never did the stars seem so 
high, so infinitely remote, as they seemed to me that night. I felt 
as though I had passed into another world that mocked the senses 
with a few dim semblances of things which a little while before had 
been real and familiar. The very paring of moon showed small as 
though looked at through an inverted telescope, and measurelessly 
remote. I do not know why this should have been, yet once after- 
wards, in speaking of this experience to a man who, in a voyage to 
India, had fallen overboard on such another night as this and swam 
for three hours, he told me that the stars had seemed to him as to 
me, and the moon, which with him was nearly full, appeared to have 
shrunk to the size of the planet Venus. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


93 


After awhile the captain’s breathing grew less harsh, and Helga 
asked me to bring the lamp that she might look at him. His teeth 
were no longer set, and his eyes, as in nature, saving that there was 
no recognition in them, and I observed that he stared straight into 
the brilliant glass of magnified flame without winking or averting 
his gaze. I propped him up, and Helga put the pannikin to his lips, 
but the fluid ran from the corners of his mouth ; upon which I let 
him rest upon his pillows, softly begging the girl to let God have 
his way with him. 

“ He cannot last through the night,” she exclaimed, in a low voice, 
and the wonderful stillness upon the sea, unvexed by the delicate 
winnowing of the draught, gathered to my mood an extraordinary 
emphasis from my being able to hear her light utterances as distinctly 
as though she whispered in a sick-room. 

“You are prepared, Helga?” said I. 

“ No, no !” she cried, with a little sob. “ Who can be prepared 
to lose one that is dearly loved? We believe we are prepared — we 
pray for strength ; but the blow falls as though we were weak and 
unready. When he is gone, I shall be alone. And oh, to die here!” 

We sank into silence. 

Another hour went by, and I believed I had fallen into a light, 
troubled doze, less sleepful than a waking day-dream, when I heard 
my name pronounced, and instantly started up. 

“ What is it ?” I cried. 

“ My father is asking for you,” answered Helga. 

I leaned over the cot and felt for his hand, which I took. It was 
of a death-like coldness and moist. 

“ I am here, Captain Nielsen,” said I. 

“ If God preserves you,” he exclaimed, very faintly, “ you will 
keep your word ?” 

“ Be sure of it — be sure of it,” I said, knowing that he referred to 
what had passed between us about Helga. 

“ I thank you,” he whispered. “ My sight seems dark, yet is not 
that the moon down there ?” 

u Yes, father,” answered the girl. 

“ Helga,” he said, “ did you not tell me you had brought your 
mother’s likeness with you ?” 

“ It is with us, and her Bible, father.” 

“ Would to God I could look upon it,” said he; “for the last time, 
Helga, for the last time !” 

“ Where is the parcel ?” I asked. 


94 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ I have it close beside me,” she answered. 

“ Open it, Helga !” said I ; “ the lamp will reveal the picture.” 

Again I lowered the bull’s-eye from the mast-head, and, while 
Helga held the picture before her father’s face, I threw the light 
upon it. It was a little oil-painting in an oval gilt frame. I could 
distinguish no more than the face of a woman — a young face — with 
a crown of yellow hair upon her head. The sheen of the lamp lay 
faintly upon the profile of Helga. All else, saving the picture, was 
in darkness, and the girl looked like a vision upon the blackness past 
her, as she knelt with the portrait extended before her father’s face. 

He addressed her in weak and broken tones in Danish, then turned 
his head and slightly raised his arm, as though he wished to point to 
something up in the sky, but was without power of limb to do so. 
On this Helga withdrew’ the portrait, and I put down the lamp, first 
searching the dark line of ocean, now scintillant with stars, before 
sitting again. 

As the moon sank, spite of her diffusing little or no light, a deeper 
dye seemed to come into the night. The shooting stars were plenti- 
ful, and betokened, as I might hope, continuance of fair weather. 
Here and there hovered a steam-colored fragment of cloud. An as- 
pect of almost summer serenity was upon the countenance of the 
sky, and, though there was the weight of the ocean in the swing of 
the swell, there was peace, too, in the regularity of its run and in the 
soundless motion of it as it took us, sloping the raft after the man- 
ner of a seesaw. 

In a boat, aboard any other contrivance than this raft put together 
by inexpert hands, I must have felt grateful, deeply thankful to God, 
indeed, for this sweet quietude of air and sea that had followed the 
roaring conflict of the long hours now passed. But I was without 
hope, and there can be no thankfulness without that emotion. These 
were the closing days of October; November w T as at hand, within an 
hour this sluggish breathing of air might be storming up into such 
another hurricane as we were fresh from. And what then ? Why, it 
was impossible to fancy such a thing even, without one’s spirits grow- 
ing heavy as lead, without feeling the presence of death in the chill 
of the night air. 

No; for this passage of calm — God forgive me ! — I could not feel 
grateful. The coward in me rose strong. I could not bless Heaven 
for what affected me as a brief pause before a dreadful end that this 
very quiet of the night was only to render more lingering and fuller, 
therefore, of suffering. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


95 


Captain Nielsen began to mutter. I did not need to listen to him 
for above a minute to gather that he was delirious. I could see the 
outline of Helga against the stars, bending over the cot. The thought 
of this heroic girl’s distress, of her complicated anguish, rallied me, 
and I broke into a very passion of self-reproach from the degradation 
of my dejection. I drew to the cot, and Helga said, 

“ He is wandering in his mind.” She added, with a note of wail- 
ing in her voice, “Jeg er nu alene! Jeg er nu alene!” by which she 
signified that she was now alone. I caught the meaning of the sen- 
tence from her pronunciation, and cried, 

“ Do not say you are alone, Helga ! Besides, your father still lives 
—hark ! what does he say ?” 

So far he had been babbling in Danish; now he spoke in English, 
in a strange voice, that sounded as though proceeding from some one 
at a distance : 

“It is so, you see. The storks did not return last spring. There 
was to be trouble — there was to be trouble ! Ha ! here is Pastor 
Madsen. Else, my beloved Else ! here is the good Pastor Madsen. 
And there, too, is Rector Gronlund. Will he observe us? Else, he 
is deep in his book. Look !” he cried, a little shrilly, pointing with 
a vehemence that startled me into following the indication of his 
shadowy, glimmering hand, directed into the darkness over the sea ; 
“ it is Holding Latin School — nay, it is Rector Gronlund’ s parsonage 
garden. Ah, rector, you remember me? This is the little Else that 
your good wife thought the prettiest child in Denmark. And this 
is Pastor Madsen.” 

He paused, then muttered in Danish, and fell silent. 


CHAPTER IX. 

RESCUED. 

This is a thing easy to recall, but how am I to convey the reality 
of it? What is there in ink to put before you that wide scene of 
starlit gloom, the dusky shapes of swell forever running noiselessly 
at us — no sounds saving the occasional creaking of the raft as she 
was swayed — the motionless, black outlines of Helga and myself 
overhanging the pallid streak of cot — at intervals a low sob breaking 


96 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


from the girl’s heart, and the overwhelming sense of present danger, 
of hopelessness, made blacker yet by the night ? And amid all this 
the crazy babbling of the dying Dane, now in English and now in 
his native tongue ! 

It was just upon the stroke of one o’clock in the morning when 
he died. I had brought my watch to the lamp, when he fetched a 
sort of groaning breath, of a character that caused me to bend my 
ear to his lips ; and I found that he had ceased to breathe. I con- 
tinued to listen, and then, to make sure, cast the light of the lamp 
upon him. 

“ He has gone !” cried Helga. 

“ God has taken him,” said I. “ Come to this side, and sit by me.” 

She did as I asked, and I took her hand. I knew by her respiration 
that she was weeping, and I held my peace till her grief should have 
had some vent. I then spoke of her father, represented that his ail- 
ments must in all probability have carried him off almost as swiftly 
ashore ; that he had died a peaceful death, with his daughter beside 
him, and his wife and home present in a vision to his gaze ; and said 
that, so far from grieving, we should count it a mercy that he had 
been called away thus easily, for who was to imagine what lay before 
us — what sufferings, which must have killed him certainly later on ? 

“ His heart broke when his bark sank,” said she. “ I beard it in 
his cry.” 

This might very well have been, too. 

Never was there so long a night. The moon was behind the sea, 
and after she was gone the very march of the stars seemed arrested, as 
though Nature had cried “Halt !” to the universe. Having run the lamp 
aloft, I resolved to leave it there, possessed now with such a super- 
stitious notion as might well influence a shipwrecked man, that if I 
lowered it again no vessel would appear. Therefore, to tell the time, 
I was obliged to strike a match, and whenever I did this I would 
stare at my watch and put it to my ear and doubt the evidence of 
my sight, so inexpressibly slow was the passage of those hours. 

Helga’s sobs ceased. She sat by my side, speaking seldom after 
we had exhausted our first talk on her coming round to where I was. 
I wished her to sleep, and told her that I could easily make a couch 
for her, and that my oil-skin would protect her from the dew. I still 
held her hand as I said this, and I felt the shudder that ran through 
her when she replied that she could not lie down, that she could not 
sleep. Perhaps she feared I would disturb her father’s body to make 
a bed for her ; and, indeed, there was nothing else on the raft, saving 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 97 

the poor fellow’s cloak and his pillows and blankets, out of which I 
could have manufactured a bed. 

Had I been sure that he was dead, I should have slipped the body 
overboard while it remained dark, so that Helga should not have 
been able to see what I did ; but I had not the courage to bury him 
merely because I believed he was dead, because he lay there motion- 
less ; and I was constantly thinking how I should manage when the 
dawn came — how I was to so deal with the body as to shock and 
pain poor Helga as little as possible. 

As we sat side by side, I felt a small pressure of her shoulder 
against my arm, and supposed that she had fallen asleep, but, on my 
whispering, she immediately answered. Dead tired I knew the brave 
girl must be, but sleep could not visit eyes whose gaze I might readily 
guess was again and again directed at the faint pale figure on the cot. 

The light air shifted into the north-west at about three o’clock in 
the morning, and blew a small breeze which extinguished the star- 
flakes that here and there rode upon the swell, and raised a noise of 
tinkling, rippling waters along the sides of the raft. I guessed this 
new direction of the wind by my observation of a bright greenish 
star which had hung in the wake of the moon, and was now low in 
the west. This light breeze kindled a little hope in me, and I would 
rise again and again to peer into the quarter whence it blew, in the 
expectation of spying some pale shadow of a ship. Once Helga, 
giving a start, exclaimed, 

“ Hush ! I seem to hear the throb of a steamer’s engines !” 

We both stood up hand in hand, for the sway of the raft made a 
danger of it as a platform, and I listened with strained hearing; it 
might have been a steamer, but there was no blotch of darkness 
upon the obscurity of the sea-line around to denote her, nor any 
gleam of lantern. Yet for nearly a quarter of an hour did we listen, 
in a torment of attention, and then resumed our seats side by side. 

The dawn broke at last, dispelling, as it seemed to my weary, de- 
spairing imagination, a long month of perpetual night. The cold 
gray was slow and stealthy, and was a tedious time in brightening 
into the silver and rose of sunrise. My first act was to sweep the sea 
for a ship, and I then went to the cot and looked at the face upon 
the pillows in it. If I had never seen death before, I might have 
known it now. I turned to the girl. 

“ Helga,” said I, gently, “ you can guess what my duty is — for 
your sake, and for mine, aud for his, too.” 

I looked earnestly at her as I spoke ; she was deadly pale, haggard, 
7 


98 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


her eyes red and inflamed with weeping, and her expression one of 
exquisite sorrow and mourning. But the sweetness of her young 
countenance was dominant even in that supreme time, and blending 
with the visible signs of misery in her looks, raised the mere pretti- 
ness of her features into a sad beauty that impressed me as a spirit- 
ual rather than as a physical revelation. 

“Yes, I know what must be done,” she answered. “Let me kiss 
him first.” 

She approached the cot, knelt by it, and put her lips to her father’s; 
then raising her clasped hands above her head, and looking upwards, 
she cried out, “ Jeg er fader los ! Gud hjelpe mig /” 

I stood apart waiting, scarcely able to draw my breath for the 
pity and sorrow that tightened my throat. It is impossible to imag- 
ine the plaintive, wailing note her voice had as she uttered those 
Danish words: “/ am fatherless! God help me!” She then hid 
her face in her hands, and remained kneeling and praying. 

After a few minutes she arose, kissed again the white face, and 
seated herself with her back towards the cot. 

No one could have named to me a more painful, a more distaste- 
ful piece of work than the having to handle the body of this poor 
Danish captain, and launch him into that fathomless grave upon 
whose surface we lay. First I had to remove the ropes which 
formed our little bulwark, that I might slide the cot overboard; 
then with some ends of line I laced the figure in the cot, that it 
should not float away out of it when launched. The work kept me 
close to the body, and, thin and white as he was, yet he looked so 
life-like, wore an expression so remonstrant, that my horror was 
sensibly tinctured with a feeling of guilt, as thougli instead of bury- 
ing him I was about to drown him. 

I made all despatch possible for Helga’s sake, but came to a pause, 
when the cot was ready, to look about me for a sinker. There was 
nothing that I could see but the jars, and, as they contained our little 
stock of spirits and fresh-water, they were altogether too precious to 
send to the bottom. I could do no more than hope that the canvas 
would speedily grow saturated, then fill and sink; and putting my 
hands to the cot, I dragged it to the edge of the raft, and went 
round to the head and pushed. 

It was midway over the side when a huge black rat sprang from 
among the blankets out through the lacing and disappeared under 
the hatch-cover. I had no doubt it was the same rat that had leaped 
from my shoulder aboard the bark. If it had terrified me there, you 


It is impossible to imagine the plaintive , wailing note her voice had as she uttered those Danish words ; ‘ 1 am fatherless /’ 




THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


99 


will guess the shock it caused me now ! I uttered some cry in the 
momentary consternation raised in me by this beastly apparition of 
life flashing, so to speak, out of the very figure and stirlessness of 
death, and Helga looked and called to know what was the matter. 

“Nothing, nothing,” I replied. “Turn your eyes from me, 
Helga.” 

She immediately resumed her former posture, covering her face 
with her hands. The next moment I had thrust the cot fair into 
the sea, and it slid off to a distance of twice or thrice its own length, 
and lay rising and falling, to all appearances buoyant as the raft it- 
self. I knew it would sink as soon as the canvas and blankets were 
soaked, yet that might take a little while in doing, and dreading lest 
Helga should look — for you will readily conceive how dreadful 
would be to the girl that sight of her father afloat in the square of 
canvas, his face showing clearly through the lacing of rope — I went 
to her, and put my arm round her, and so, but without speaking, 
obliged her to keep her face away. I gathered from her passiveness 
that she understood me. When I glanced again, the cot was in the 
act of sinking ; in a few beats of the heart it vanished, and all was 
blank ocean to the heavens — a prospect of little flashful and feather- 
ing ripples, but glorious as molten and sparkling silver in the east 
under the soaring sun. 

I withdrew my hand from Helga’s shoulder. She then looked, 
and sighed heavily, but no more tears flowed. I believe she had 
wept her heart dry. 

“In what words am I to thank you for your kindness and sym- 
pathy ?” said she. “ My father and my mother are looking down 
upon us, and they will bless you.” 

“ We must count on being saved, Helga,” said I, forcing a cheer- 
ful note into my voice. “ You will see Holding again, and I shall 
hope to see it, too, by your side.” And with the idea of diverting 
her mind from her grief I told her of my promise to her father, 
and how happy it would make me to accompany her to Denmark. 

“I have been too much of a home-bird,” said I. “ You will provide 
me with a good excuse for a ramble, Helga ; but first you shall meet 
my dear old mother, and spend some time with us. I am to save 
your life, you know. I am here for that purpose ;” and so I con- 
tinued to talk to her, now and again coaxing a light, sorrowful 
smile to her lips ; but it was easy to know where her heart was ; all 
the while she was sending glances at the sea close to the raft, where 
she might guess the cot had sunk, and twice I overheard her whisper 


100 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


to herself that same passionate, grieving sentence she had uttered 
when she kissed her father’s dead face : “ Jeg er faderlds ! Gud 
hjelpe mig /” 

The morning stole away. Very soon after I had buried the cap- 
tain I lowered the lamp, and sent the Danish flag we had brought 
with us to the head of the little mast, where it blew out bravely, and 
promised to boldly court any passing eye that might be too distant 
to catch a sight of our flat platform of raft. I then got breakfast, 
and induced Helga to eat and drink. Somehow, whether it was be- 
cause of the sick, complaining captain, with his depressing menace 
of death being gone, or because of the glad sunshine, the high mar- 
bling of the heavens, full of fine weather, and the quiet of the sea, 
with its placid heave of swell and its twinkling of prismatic ripples, 
my heart felt somewhat light, my burden of despondency was easier 
to carry, was less crushing to my spirits. What to hope for I did 
not know. I needed no special wisdom to guess that if we were not 
speedily delivered from this raft we were as certainly doomed as 
though we had clung to the bark and gone down in her. Yet 
spite of this there was a stirring of hope in me. It seemed impossi- 
ble but that some ship must pass us before the day was gone. How 
far we had blown to the southward and westward during the gale I 
could not have told, but I might be sure we were not very distant 
from the mouth of the English Channel, and therefore in the fair 
way of vessels inward and outward bound, more particularly of 
steamers heading for Portuguese and Mediterranean ports. 

But hour after hour passed, and nothing hove into view. The 
sun went floating from his meridian into the west, and still the hori- 
zon remained a blank, near, heaving line, with the sky whitening to 
the ocean rim. Again and again Helga sought the boundary as I 
did. Side by side we would stand, she holding by my arm, and to- 
gether we gazed, slowly sweeping the deep. 

“ It is strange !” she once said, after a long and thirsty look. 
“ We are not in the middle of the ocean. Not even the smoke of a 
steamer !” 

“Our horizon is narrow,” answered I. “Does it exceed three 
miles? I should say not, save when the swell lifts us, and then per- 
haps we may see four. Four miles of sea!” I cried. “There may 
be a dozen ships within three leagues of us, all of them easily within 
sight from the main-top of the Anine were she afloat. But what 
short of a straight course for the raft could bring this speck of 
timber on which we stand into view? This is the sort of situation 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


101 


to make one understand what is signified by the immensity of the 
ocean.” 

She shivered and clasped her hands. 

“That I — that we — ” she exclaimed, speaking slowly and almost 
under her breath — “ should have brought you to this pass, Mr. 
Tregarthen! It was our fate by rights — but it ought not to be 
yours !” 

“ You asked me to call you Helga,” said I, “ and you must give 
me my Christian name.” 

“ What is it?” she asked. 

“ Hugh.” 

“ It is a pretty name. If we are spared, it will be sweet to my 
memory while I have life !” 

She said this with an exquisite artlessness, with an expression of 
wonderful sweetness and gentleness in her eyes which were bravely 
fastened upon me, and then, suddenly catching up my hand, put her 
lips to it and pressed it to her heart, letting it fall as she turned her 
face upon the water on that side of the raft where her father’s body 
had sunk. 

My spirits, which remained tolerably buoyant while the sun stood 
high, sank as he declined. The prospect of another long night upon 
the raft, and of all that might happen in a night, was insupportable. 
I had securely bound the planks together, as I believed, but the con- 
stant play of the swell was sure to tell after a time. One of the 
ligatures might chafe through, and in a minute the whole fabric scat- 
ter under our feet like the staves of a stove boat, and leave us no 
more than a plank to hold on by in the midst of this great sea, which 
all day long had been without ships. I often bitterly deplored I 
had not brought a sail from the bark, for the air that hung steady 
all day blew landwards, and there was no weight in it to have carried 
away the flimsiest fabric we could have erected. A sail would have 
given us a drift — perhaps have put us in the way of sighting a ves- 
sel, and in any case it would have mitigated the intolerable sense of 
helpless imprisonment which came to one with thoughts of the raft 
floating without an inch of way upon her, overhanging all day long, 
as it might have seemed, that very spot of waters in which Helga’s 
father had found his grave. 

Shortly before sundown Helga sighted a sail in the south-west. It 
was the merest shaft of pearl gleaming above the ocean rim, and 
visible to us only when the quiet heave of the sea threw us up. It 
was no more than a vessel’s topmost canvas, and before the sun was 


102 


MY BANISH SWEETHEART: 


gone the dim star-like sheen of those cloths had faded out into the 
atmosphere. 

“ You must get some rest to-night, Helga,” said I. “Your keep- 
ing awake will not save us if we are to be drowned, and if we are to 
be saved then sleep will keep you in strength. It is the after-conse- 
quences of this sort of exposure and mental distress which are to 
be dreaded.” 

“ Shall I be able to sleep on this little rickety platform ?” she ex- 
claimed, running her eyes, glowing dark against the faint scarlet in 
the west, over the raft. “ It brings one so dreadfully near to the 
surface of the sea. The coldness of the very grave itself seems to 
come out of it.” 

“You talk like a girl now that you are dressed as one, Helga. 
The hearty young sailor-lad that I met aboard the Anine would have 
found nothing more than a raft and salt-water in this business, and 
would have ‘ planked ’ it here as comfortably as in his cabin bunk.” 

“ It did not please you to see me in boy’s clothes,” said she. 

“ You made a very charming boy, Helga ; but I like you best as 
you are.” 

“No stranger should have seen me dressed so,” she exclaimed, in a 
tone of voice that made me figure a little flush in her cheeks, though 
there was nothing to be seen in that way by the twilight which had 
drawn around us. “I did not care what the mates and the crew 
thought, but I could not have guessed” — she stammered and went 
on — “ when I saw in the bay what the weather was likely to prove, 
I determined to keep my boy’s dress on, more particularly after that 
wretched man, Damm, went away with the others, for then the Anine 
would be very short-handed for what might happen, and how could 
I have been of use in this attire?” and she took hold of her dress 
and looked down it. 

“ I have heard before,” said I, “ of girls doing sailors’ work, but 
not for love of it. In the old songs and stories they are represented 
as going to sea chiefly in pursuit of absconding sweethearts.” 

“ You think me unwomanly for acting the part of a sailor?” said 
she. 

“ I think of you, Helga,” said I, taking her by the hand, “ as a 
girl with the heart of a lioness. But if I once contrive to land you 
safely at Holding, you will not go to sea again, I hope?” 

She sighed, without replying. 

There was nothing but her father’s cloak and my oil skins to make 
a couch for her with. When I pressed her to take some rest, she 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


103 


entreated softly that I would allow her to go on talking and sitting 
— that she was sleepless — that it lightened her heart to talk with 
me — that there were many hours of darkness yet before us — and 
that before she consented to lie down we must arrange to keep watch, 
since I needed rest, too. 

I was willing, indeed, to keep her at my side talking. The dread 
of the loneliness which I knew would come off the wide, dark sea 
into my brain when she was silent and asleep, and when there would 
be nothing but the stars and the cold and ghastly gleam of the 
ebony breast on which we lay to look at, was strong upon me. I 
mast-headed the bull’s-eye lamp, and spread the poor Danish cap- 
tain’s cloak, and we seated ourselves upon it, and for a long two 
hours we talked together, in which time she gave me her life’s his- 
tory, and I chatted to her about myself. I listened to her with inter- 
est and admiration. Her voice was pure, with a quality of plaintive 
sweetness in it, and now and again she would utter a sentence in 
Danish, then translate it. It might be that the girlish nature I now 
found in her was accentuated to my appreciation by the memory of 
her boyish attire, by her appearance when on board the bark, the 
work she did there, and the sort of roughness one associates with the 
trade of the sea, whether true of the individual or not ; but, as I 
thought, never had I been in the company of any woman whose con- 
versation and behavior were so engaging, with their qualities of deli- 
cacy, purity, simplicity, and candor as Helga’s. 

It was such another night as had passed, saving that the long ocean 
swell had the softness of the long hours of fine weather in its vol- 
ume, whereas on the previous night it still breathed as in memory 
of the fierce conflict that was over. 

A little after midnight there was a red scar of moon in the west, 
and the hour was a very dark one, spite of the silver showering of 
the plentiful stars. I had made for Helga the best sort of couch 
it was in my power to manufacture, and at this time she lay upon it 
sleeping deeply, as I knew by the regularity of her respiration. The 
sense of loneliness I dreaded had been upon me since she lay down 
and left me to the solitary contemplation of our situation. A small 
wind blew out of the north-west, and there was much slopping noise 
of waters under my feet amid the crevices of the clumsily-framed 
raft. I had promised Helga to call her at three, but without intend- 
ing to keep my word if she slept, and I sat near her head, her pale 
face glimmering out of the darkness as though spectrally self-lumi- 
nous, and forever I was turning my eyes about the sea and directing 


104 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


my gaze at the little mast-head lantern to know that it was burn- 
ing. 

Happening to bend my gaze down upon the raft into some inter- 
stice close against where the hatch-cover was secured, I spied what, 
for the moment, I might have supposed a pair of glow-worms, mi- 
nute, but defined enough. Then I believed there was a little pool of 
water there, and that it reflected a couple of stars. A moment after 
I guessed what it was, and in a very frenzy of the superstition that 
had been stirring in me, and in many directions of thought influ- 
encing me, from the moment of my leaving the bark, I had my hand 
upon the great rat — for that was what it was — and sent it flying 
overboard. I remember the wild squeak of the beast as I hurled it: 
you would have supposed it the cry of a distant gull. There was a 
little fire in the water, and I could see where it swam ; and all very 
quietly I seized hold of a loose plank, and waiting till it had come 
near, I hit it, and kept on hitting it till I might be sure it was 
drowned. 

Some little noise I may have made ; Helga spoke in her sleep, but 
did not wake. You will smile at my mentioning this trifling passage : 
you would laugh could I make you understand the emotion of relief, 
the sense of exultant happiness, that possessed me when I had drown- 
ed this rat. When I look back and recall this little detail of my ex- 
periences, I never doubt that the overwhelming spirit of the loneli- 
ness of that ocean night lay upon me in a sort of craziness. I thought 
of the rat as an evil spirit, a something horribly ominous to us, a 
menace of suffering and of dreadful death while it stayed with us. 
God knows why I should have thus thought ; but the imagination of 
the shipwrecked is quickly diseased, and the moods which a man will 
afterwards look back upon with shame and grief and astonishment 
are, while they are present, to him as fruitful of terrible imaginings 
as ever made the walls of a mad-house ring with maniac laughter. 

It might have been some half-hour after this — the silly excitement 
of the incident having passed out of my mind — that I fell into a 
doze. Nature was wellnigh exhausted in me, yet I did not wish to 
sleep. In proportion, however, as the workings of my brain were 
stealthily quieted by the slumberous feelings stealing over me, so the 
soothing influences without operated — the cradling of the raft, the 
hushing and subduing gaze of the stars, the soft whispering of the 
wind. 

I was awakened by a rude shock, followed by a hoarse, bawling 
cry. There was a second shock of a sort to smartly bring my wits 


THE ROMANCE OP A MONTH. 


105 


together, attended with several shouts, such as, “ What is it ?” “ What 
have ye run us into ?” “ Why, stroike me silly, if it ain’t a raft !”• 

I sprang to my feet, and found the bows of a little vessel over- 
hanging us. Small as I might know her to be, she yet loomed tall 
and black, and even’ seemed to tower over us, so low-seated were we. 
She lined her proportions against the starry sky, and I made out that 
she had hooked herself to us by running her bowsprit through the 
stays which supported our mast. 

My first thought was for Helga; but she was rising even as I 
looked, and the next moment was at my side. 

“ For God’s sake,” I cried, “ lower away your sail, or your stem 
will grind this raft to pieces ! We are two — a girl and a man — 
shipwrecked people. I implore you to help us to get on board you !” 

A lantern was held over the side, and the face of the man who 
held it showed out to the touch of the lustre like a picture in a 
camera obscura. The rays of the lantern streamed fairly upon us, 
and the man roared out, 

“Aye, it’s a raft, Jacob ; and there are two of ’em, and one a gal. 
Chuck the man a rope’s-end and he’ll haul the raft alongside.” 

“ Look out !” shouted another voice, from the after part of the lit- 
tle vessel, and some coils of rope fell at my feet. 

I instantly seized the line, and Helga catching hold too, we strained 
our united weight at it, and the raft swung alongside the craft at the 
moment that she lowered her sail. 

“ Catch hold of the lady’s hands !” I shouted. 

In a moment she was dragged over the side. I handed up the lit- 
tle parcel containing her mother’s picture and Bible, and followed 
easily, scrambling over the low rail. 

The man who grasped the lantern held it aloft to survey us, and I 
saw the dusky glimmer of two other faces past him. 

“ This is a queer start !” said he. “ How long have you been 
knocking about here?” 

“ You shall have the yarn presently,” said I ; “ but before the raft 
goes adrift, it’s well you should know that she is pretty handsomely 
stocked with provisions, all worth bringing aboard.” 

“Right!” he cried. “Jacob, take this here lantern and jump 
over the side, and hand up what ye find.” 

All this had happened too suddenly to suffer me as yet to be sen- 
sible of what came little short of a miraculous deliverance ; for had 
the craft been a vessel of burden, or had there been any weight in 
the soft night air still blowing, she would have sheared through us 


106 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


as we lay asleep, and scattered the raft and drowned us out of hand; 
nay, before we could have cried “ O God !” we should have been suf- 
focating in the water. 

I believed her at first a fishing-boat. She was lugger-rigged and 
open, with a little forecastle in her bows, as I had noticed while the 
lantern dangled in the hand of the man who surveyed us. Yet had 
she been a line-of-battle ship she could not, as a refuge and a means 
of deliverance after the horror and peril of that flat platform of raft, 
have filled me with more joy and thanksgiving. 

“ The worst is over, Helga !” I cried, as I seized the girl’s cold and 
trembling hand. “ Here is a brave little vessel to carry us home, 
and you will see Holding again, after all.” 

She made some answer, which her emotion rendered scarcely in- 
telligible. Her being suddenly awakened by the shock of the col- 
lision, her alarm on seeing what might have passed in the gloom as 
a tall black mass of bow crushing into the raft, then the swiftness of 
our entry into the lugger, and the sensations which would follow on 
her perception of our escape from a terrible death — all this, com- 
bined with what she had gone through, was too much for the brave 
little creature ; she could scarcely whisper ; and, as I have said, her 
hand was cold as frost, and trembled like an aged person’s as I gently 
brought her to one of the thwarts. 

By this time I had made out that the boat carried only three of a 
crew. One of them, holding the lantern, had sprung on to the raft, 
and was busy in handing up to the others whatever he could lay his 
hands upon. They did not spend many minutes over this business. 
Indeed, I was astonished by their despatch. The fellow on the raft 
worked like one who was very used to rummaging, and, as I knew 
afterwards by observing what he had taken, it was certain not a sin- 
gle crevice escaped him. 

“ That’s all,” I heard him shout. “ There’s naught left that I can 
find, unless so be as the parties have snugged any valuables away,” 

“ No,” I cried, “ there are no valuables, no money — nothing but 
food and drink.” 

“ Come aboard, Jacob, arter ye’ve chucked up what’s loose for 
firewood.” 

Presently the lantern flashed as it was passed across the rail, and 
the figure of the man followed. 

“Shove her clear!” was bawled, and, shortly afterwards, “Up 
foresail !” 

The dark square of sail mounted, and one of the men came aft to 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


107 


the helm. Nothing was said until the sheet had been hauled aft, 
and the little craft was softly rippling along over the smooth folds 
of the swell, communicating a sensation so buoyant, so vital, after the 
flat, mechanical swaying and slanting of the inert raft, that the mere 
feeling of it to me was as potent in virtue as some life-giving dram. 

The other two men came out of the bows and seated themselves, 
placing the lighted lantern in the midst of us, and so we sat staring 
at one another. 

“ Men/’ said I, “ you have rescued us from a horrible situation. 
I thank you for my life, and I thank you for this lady’s life.” 

“ How long have ye been washing about, sir ?” said the man at 
the helm. 

“ Since Monday night,” said I. 

“A bad job!” said he; “but you’ll have had it foine since Mon- 
day night. Any one perish aboard your raft ?” 

“ One,” I answered, quickly. “ And now I’ll tell you my story. 
But first I must ask for a drop of spirits out of one of those jars you’ve 
transhipped. A sudden change of this sort tries a man to the soul.” 

“Aye, you’re right,” growled one of the others. “I know what 
it is to be plucked by the hair o’ the head out of the hopen jaws of 
death, and the sort of feelings what comes arter the plucking job’s 
o’er. Which’ll be the partic’ler jar, sir ?” 

“Any one of them,” said I. 

He explored with the lantern, found a little jar of brandy, and 
the glass, or rather I should say the pannikin, went round. I coaxed 
Helga into taking a sup ; yet she continued silent at my side, as one 
still dazed and incapable of mastering what had happened. Indeed, 
with her woman’s apparel, you might have believed that she had re- 
equipped herself with her woman’s nature. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE EARLY MORN. 

I told my story, and the three fellows listened attentively. Their 
eyes glowed in the lamplight as they stared at me. The weak wind 
raised a pleasant buzzing noise at the cut-water, and the lugger stole 
in floating launches through the gloom over the long, invisible heave 
of the Atlantic swell. 


108 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“Ah,” said the helmsman, when I had made an end, “we heerd 
of that there Tintrenale life-boat job when we was at Penzance. An’ 
so you was her cockswain ?” 

“ Were the people of the boat drowned?” cried I, eagerly. “ Can 
you give me any news of them ?” 

“ No, sir,” he answered ; “ there was no particulars to hand when 
we sailed. All that we larnt was that a life -boat had been stove 
alongside a vessel in Tintrenale Bay ; and little wonder, tew, says I 
to my mates when I heerd it. Never remember the like of such a 
night as that there.” 

“ What was the name of the Dane again ?” said one of the fellows 
seated opposite me, as he lighted a short clay pipe by the flame of a 
match that he dexterously shielded from the wind in his hand as 
though his fist was a lantern. 

“ The Anine ,” I answered. 

“ A bit of a black bark, warn’t she ?” he continued. “ Capt’n with 
small eyes, and a beard like a goat! Why, yes; it’ll be that there 
bark, Tommy, that slipped two year ago. Pigsears Hall and Stick- 
enup Adams and me had a nice little job along with her.” 

“You are quite right,” said Helga, in a low voice; “I was on 
board the vessel at the time. The captain was my father.” 

“ Oh, indeed, mum !” said the fellow who steered. “ An’ he’s gone 
dead ! Poor old gentleman !” 

“ What is this boat ?” said I, desiring to cut this sort of sympathy 
short. 

“ The Airly Mam” answered the helmsman. 

“ The Early Morn ! And from what part of the coast, pray ?” 

“ Why, ye might see, I think, sir, that she hails from Deal,” he 
answered. “ There’s nothen resembling the likes of her coming from 
elsewhere that I knows of.” 

“And what are you doing down in this part of the ocean ?” 

“ Why,” said he, after spitting over the stern and passing his hand 
along his mouth, “ we’re agoing to Austral ey.” 

“Going where?” I cried, believing I had not correctly heard him, 
while Helga started from her drooping posture and turned to look 
at me. 

“ To Sydney, New South Wales, which is in Australey,” he ex- 
claimed. 

“ In this small open boat ?” 

“ This small open boat !” echoed one of the others. “ The Airly 
Mam's eighteen ton, and if she be’nt big enough and good enough 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


109 


to carry three men to Anstraley there’s nothen afloat as is going to 
show her how to do it !” 

By the light shed by the dimly-burning lantern, where it stood in 
the bottom of the boat, I endeavored to gather from their faces 
whether they spoke seriously, or whether, indeed, they were under 
the influence of earlier drams of liquor than the dose they had 
swallowed from our jar. 

“ Are you in earnest, men ?” said I. 

“ Airnest !” cried the man at the tiller, in a voice of astonishment, 
as though he wondered at my wonder. “ Why, to be sure we are ! 
What’s wrong with us that we shouldn’t be agoing to Australey ?” 

I glanced at the short length of dark fabric, and up at the black 
square of lugsail. 

“What is taking you to Australia in a Deal lugger?” said I. 

The man styled Abraham by his mates answered: “We’re a-car- 
rying this here craft out on a job for the gent that’s bought her. 
There was three of us an’ a boy, but the boy took sick at Penzance, 
and we came away without him.” 

He paused. The man sitting next him continued, in a deep 
voice : 

“ A gent as lives in Lunnon took this here Airly Mam over for a 
debt. Well, when he got her he didn’t know what to do with her. 
There was no good a-leaving her to pine away on the beach, so he 
tarns to and puts her up to auction. Well, there was ne’er a bid.” 

“ Ne’er a bid !” echoed the man who was steering. 

“ Ne’er a bid, I says,” continued the other; “ and whoy ? First of 
all, there ain’t no money in Deal ; and next, the days of these lug- 
gers is nombered. Well, this here gent was called upon by an Aus- 
tralian friend who, gitting to hear of the Airly Mam , says he’s a- 
willing to buy her for a sum. What that sum might be I’m not 
here for to know.” 

“Fifty pound, I allow,” said the man named Tommy. “Some 
says she was guv away. I’ve heerd speak of thirty pound. But 
fifty’s what I call it.” 

“ Call it fifty,” exclaimed the fellow who steered. 

“ Well,” continued the first speaker, whose voice was peculiarly 
harsh, “ this here gent having purchased the Airly Mam , comes 
down to Deal, and gives out that he wants some men to carry her 
to Sydney. The matter was tarned over. How much would he 
give? Well, he’d give two hundred-an-fifty pound, and them as un- 
dertook the job might make what shares they chose of the money. 


110 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


I was for making six shares. Abraham there says no, fower’s enough. 
Tommy says three an’ a boy. That’s seventy-five pound a man, and 
twenty -five pound for the boy; but the boy being took sick, his 
share becomes ourn.” 

“And you think seventy -five pounds apiece pay enough for as 
risky an undertaking as was ever heard of ?” cried I. 

“Wish it were already aimed,” said Abraham. “Pay enough? 
Oy, and good monney, tew, in such times as these.” 

“How far are we from the English coast?” asked Helga. 

The man called Jacob, after a little silence, answered, “ Why, I 
dare say the Land’s End ’ll be about a hundred an’ eighty mile off.” 

“ It would not take long to return,” she exclaimed. “ Will you 
not land us?” 

“ What ! on the English coast, mum ?” he cried. 

I saw him peering earnestly at us, as though he would gather our 
condition by our attire. 

“ It’s a long way back,” continued he ; “ and supposing the wind,” 
he added, looking up at the sky, “ should head us ?” 

“ If the gent would make it worth us men’s while ” — broke in 
Tommy. 

“ No, no !” exclaimed Abraham, “ we don’t want to make nothen 
out of a fellow -creature’s distress. We’ve saved ye, and that’s a 
good job. Next thing we’ve got to do is to put ye aboard the first 
homeward-bound vessel we falls in with. I’m for keeping all on. 
Ships is plentiful hereabout, and ye’ll not be kept awaiting. But 
to up helium for the English coast again ” — I saw his head wag 
vehemently against the stars. “It’s a long way to Australey, mas- 
ter, and ne’er a man of us touches a penny piece till we gits there.” 

I sat considering a little. My immediate impulse was to offer the 
fellows a reward to land us. Then I thought, no ! They may ask 
too much, and, indeed, whatever they might expect must prove too 
much for me, to whom five pounds was a considerable sum, though, 
as I have told you, my mother’s slender income was enough for us 
both. Besides, the money these men might ask would be far more 
fitly devoted to Helga, who had lost all save what she stood in, who 
was without a friend in England except myself and mother, who had 
been left by her father without a farthing saving some pitiful sum 
of insurance money, which she would not get for many a long day, 
and who, brave heart ! would, therefore, need my mother’s purse to 
refurnish her wardrobe and embark her for her Danish home, if, in- 
deed, there would now be a home for her at Holding. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


Ill 


These considerations passed with the velocity of thought through 
my mind. On the other hand, we were no longer aboard a station- 
ary raft, but in a nimble little lugger that every hour was carrying 
us into a new prospect of ocean ; and we might be sure, therefore, 
of speedily falling in with a homeward-bound steamer that would 
convey us to England in a tenth of the time the lugger would oc- 
cupy, very much more comfortably, too, and at the cost of a few 
shillings, so to speak. Then, again, I felt too grateful for our pres- 
ervation, too glad and rejoiceful over our deliverance from the dread- 
ful future that had just now lain before us to remonstrate with the 
men, to oppose their wishes to pursue their course — to utter a word, 
in short, that might make them suppose I did not consider our mere 
escape from the raft good-fortune enough. 

“Surely it would not take them very long,” Helga whispered in 
my ear, “ to sail this boat back to Penzance ?” 

I repeated, in a voice inaudible to the others, the reflections which 
had occurred to me. 

“ Why, see there now !” bawled one of the boatmen, pointing with 
a shadowy hand into the dusk over the lee quarter. “ There’s plenty 
of the likes of her to fall in with ; only she's agoing the wrong way.” 

I peered, and spied the green side and white mast-head lanterns of 
a steamer propelling along the water at about a quarter of a mile 
distant. I could faintly distinguish the loom of her black length, 
like a smear of ink upon the obscurity, and the line of her smoke 
against the stars, with now and again a little leap of furnace-light at 
the funnel-mouth that, while it hung there, might have passed for 
the blood-red visage of the moon staring out of a stormy sky. 

“ See, Helga !” I cried ; “ there are many like her, as this man says. 
In a few hours, please God, we may be safe aboard such another !” 
And I sunk my voice to add, “ We cannot do better than wait. Our 
friends here will be glad to get rid of us. No fear of their detain- 
ing us a moment longer than can be helped.” 

“ Yes, you are right,” she answered ; “ but I wish to quickly re- 
turn for your sake — for your mother’s sake, Hugh.” 

Her soft utterance of my name fell pleasantly upon my ear. I 
felt for her hand, and pressed it, and whispered, “ A little patience, 
and we shall find ourselves at home again. All is well with us now.” 

The lights to leeward silently glided ahead, and turned black upon 
the bow. One of the boatmen yawned with the roar of an animal. 

“ Nothen to keep me out of my bunk now, I allow,” said he. 
“ No more rafts to run into, I hope.” 


112 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ I should like to get this lady under shelter,” said I. 

“ That’s easily done !” exclaimed Abraham. “ There’s a nice little 
forepeak and a bunk in it at her sarvice.” 

Helga hastily exclaimed that she had had rest enough. I per- 
ceived that the delicacy of our Deal friends did not go to the length 
of observing that while Helga occupied the forepeak it must be 
hers, and hers only ; but the discussion of that point was out of the 
question now ; so she stayed where she was, the boatman that had 
yawned went forward, and in a few minutes his snoring came along 
in a sound like the grating of a boat’s keel over the shingle of his 
native town. 

These darkest hours of the night slowly passed. The breeze blew, 
the keen stem of the lugger ripped through the quiet heave of the 
ocean, and I waited for the dawn, never doubting that Helga and I 
would be out of the boat and aboard some homeward-bounder ere 
we should have counted another half-score hours. The homely chat 
of the two men, their queer longshore phrases, the rough sympathy 
they sought to convey by their speech, were delightful to listen to. 
Such had been my experiences that, though five days comprised 
them, it seemed as if I had been six months from home. The talk 
mainly concerned this daring, extraordinary voyage to Australia in 
what was truly no more than an open boat. The excitement of de- 
light over our rescue was in a measure spent. I could think calmly, 
and attend with interest to other considerations than our preserva- 
tion, our sufferings, and, in short, ourselves. And what could inter- 
est me more than this singular undertaking on the part of three 
boatmen ? 

I inquired what food they carried. 

“ Whoy,” says Abraham, “ we’ve got beef an’ pork and ship’s 
bread and other wittles arter that sort.” 

“ Shall you touch at any ports?” 

“ Oy, if the need arises, master.” 

“ Need arises ! You are bound to run short of food and water !” 

“There’s a-plenty of ships to fall in with at sea, master, to help 
us along.” 

“ How long do you reckon on taking to make the run ?” 

“ Fower or foive month,” answered Abraham. 

“ Oy, an’ perhaps six,” said Jacob. 

“ Who is skipper ?” said I. 

“ There aren’t no degrees here,” answered Abraham ; “ leastways, 
now that the boy’s gone sick and ’s left beboind.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


113 


“ But which of you is navigator, then V* 

“ Oy am,” said Abraham — “ that’s to say, I’ve got a quadrant 
along with me, and know how to tell at noon what o’clock it is. 
That’s what’s tarmed hascertaining the latitude. As to what’s called 
longitude, she’s best left to the log-line.” 

“ So she is,” said Jacob. 

“ And you have no doubt of accurately striking the port of Sydney 
without troubling yourselves about your longitude ?” 

“ Ne’er a doubt,” said Abraham. 

“ Or if so be as a doubt should come up, then heave the log, says 
I,” broke in Jacob. 

Their manner of speaking warned me to conceal my amazement 
that under other conditions could not have been without merriment. 
They told me they had left Penzance on the morning of Monday, 
while it was still blowing heavily. “ But we saw that the breeze,” 
Abraham said, “ was agoing to fail, and so there was no call to stop 
for the wedder yet they had hardly run the land out of sight when 
they sprung their mast in the jump of a very hollow sea. “ There 
was no use trying to ratch back agin that sea and breeze,” said Abra- 
ham ; “ so we stepped our spare mast and laid the wounded chap in 
his place; but if the wedder be as bad off the Cape as I’ve heerd 
talk off, I allow we’ll be needing a rig-out o’ spars if we’re to reach 
Australey ; and what ’ll have to be done ’ll be to fall in with some 
wessel as ’ll oblige us.” 

Considering they were seafaring men, this prodigious confidence 
in luck and chance was not less wonderful than the venture they 
were upon. But it was for me to question and listen, not to criticise. 

“ They will never reach Australia,” Helga whispered. 

“ They are English seamen,” said I, softly. 

“ No, Hugh ; boatmen,” says she, giving me my name as easily 
as though we had been brother and sister. “ And what will they do 
without longitude ?” 

“ Grope their way,” I whispered, “after the manner of the early 
mariners who achieved everything in the shape of seamanship and 
discovery in ‘ barkes,’ as they called them, compared to which this 
lugger is as a thousand-ton ship to a Gravesend wherry.” 

The two boatmen were holding a small, hoarse argument touching 
the superiority of certain galley-punts belonging to Deal when the 
dawn broke along the port-beam of the lugger. The sea turned an 
ashen green, and throbbed, darkening to the gray wall of eastern sky, 
against which it washed in a line of inky blackness, I sprang on to 
3 


114 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


a thwart to look ahead on either bow, and Helga stood up beside 
ine; and as upon the bark, and as upon the raft, so now we stood 
together sweeping the irony -gray sky and the dark line of horizon 
for any flaw that might denote a vessel. But the sea stretched bald 
to its recesses the compass round. 

The heavens in the east brightened and the sea-line changed into 
a steely whiteness, but this delicate distant horizontal gleam of water 
before sunrise gave us sight of nothing. 

“Anything to be seen, sir?” cried Abraham. 

“ Nothing,” I answered, dismounting from the thwart. 

“ Well, there’s all day afore ye,” said Jacob, who had taken the 
helm. 

Now that daylight was come my first look was at Helga, to see 
how she had borne the bitter time that was passed. Her eyelids were 
heavy, her cheeks of a deathlike whiteness, her lips pale, and in the 
tender hollow under each eye lay a greenish hue, resembling the 
shadow a spring leaf might fling. It was clear that she had been se- 
cretly weeping from time to time during the dark hours. She smiled 
when our eyes met, and her face was instantly sweetened by the ex- 
pression into the gentle prettiness I had first found in her. 

I next took a survey of my new companions. The man styled 
Abraham was a sailorly-looking fellow, corresponding but indiffer- 
ently with one’s imagination of the conventional longshoreman. He 
had sharp features, a keen, iron-gray, seawardly eye, and a bunch of 
reddish beard stood forth from his chin. He was dressed in pilot- 
cloth, wore earrings, and his head was incased in a sugar-loafed felt 
hat built after the fashion of a theatrical bandit’s. 

Jacob, on the other hand, was the most faithful copy of a Deal 
boatman that could have been met afloat. His face was flat and 
broad, with a skin stained in places of a brick red. He had little, 
merry, but rather dim, blue eyes, and suggested a man who would 
be able, without great effort of memory, to tell you how many public- 
houses there were in Deal, taking them all round. He had the 
whitest teeth I had ever seen in a sailor, and the glance of them 
through his lips seemed to fix an air of smiling upon his face. His 
attire consisted of a fur cap, forced so low down upon the head that 
it obliged his ears to stand out; a yellow oil-skin jumper and a pair 
of stout fearnaught trousers, the ends of which were packed into 
half-wellington boots. 

The third man, named Thomas or Tommy, still continued out of 
sight in the forepeak. One will often see at a glance 3s much as 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


115 


might occupy some pages to even briefly describe. In a few turns 
of the eye I had taken in these two men and their little ship. The 
boat seemed to me a very fine specimen of the Deal lugger. Her 
forepeak consisted of a forecastle, the deck of which was carried in 
the shape of a platform several feet abaft the bulkhead, which limited 
the sleeping compartment, and under this pent-house or break were 
stored the anchors, cables, and other gear belonging to the little ves- 
sel. In the middle of the boat, made fast by chains, was a stove, 
with a box under the “ raft,” as the forecastle-deck is called, in which 
were kept the cooking utensils. I noticed fresh-water casks stowed 
in the boat’s bilge, and a harness- cask for the meat near the fore- 
peak. Bight amidships lay a little fat punt, measuring about four- 
teen feet long, and along the sides of the thwarts were three sweeps, 
or long oars, the foremast that had been “ sprung,” and a spare bow- 
spirit. This equipment I took in with the swift eye of a man who 
was at heart a boatman. 

A noble boat, indeed, for Channel cruising, for the short, ragged 
seas of our narrow waters. But for the voyage to Australia! I 
could only stare and wonder. 

The big lugsail was doing its work handsomely ; the breeze was 
out on the starboard quarter, a pleasant wind, but with a hardness in 
the face of the sky to windward, a rigidity of small, compacted, high- 
hanging cloud with breaks of blue between, showing of a wintry 
keenness when the sun soared, that promised a freshening of the 
wind before noon. Under the steadfast drag of her lug the light, 
bright-sided boat was buzzing through it merrily, with a spitting of 
foam off either bow, and a streak on either side of wool -white water 
creaming into her wake that streamed rising and falling far astern. 

Had her head been pointing the other way, with a promise of the 
dusky gray of the Cornish coast to loom presently upon the sea-line, 
I should have found something delightful in the free, floating, airy 
motion of the lugger sweeping over the quiet hills of swell, her 
weather-side caressed by the heads of the little seas crisply running 
along with her in a sportive, racing way. But the desolation of the 
ocean lay as an oppression upon my spirits. I counted upon the 
daybreak revealing several sail, and here and there the blue streak of 
a steamer’s smoke, but there was nothing of the sort to be seen, 
while every hour of such nimble progress as the lugger was now 
making must, to a degree, diminish our chances of falling in with 
homeward-bound craft; that is to say, we were sure, sooner or later, 
to meet with a ship going to England, but the farther south we went 


116 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


the longer would be the intervals between the showing of ships by 
reason of the navigation scattering as it opened out into the North 
Atlantic ; and so, though I never doubted that we should be taken 
off the lugger and carried home, yet as I looked around this vacant 
sea I was depressed by the fear that some time might pass before 
this would happen, and my thoughts went to my mother — how she 
might be supposing me dead, and mourning over me as lost to her 
forever, and how, if I could quickly return to her, I should be able 
to end her heartache and perhaps preserve her life; for I was her 
only child, and that she would fret over me even to the breaking of 
her heart, I feared, despite her having sanctioned my going out to 
save life. 

Yet when I looked at Helga and reflected upon what her suffer- 
ings had been and what her loss was, and noted the spirit that still 
shone nobly in her steadfast gaze and was expressed in the lines of 
her lips, I felt that I was acting my part as a man but poorly in suf- 
fering my spirits to droop. This time yesterday we were upon a 
raft from which the first rise of sea must have swept us. It was the 
hard stare of the north-westerly sky that caused me to think of this 
time yesterday; and with something of a shiver and a long, deep 
breath of gratitude for the safety that had come to us with this little 
fabric buoyant under our feet, I broke away from my mood of dul- 
ness with a half-smile at the two homely boatmen who sat staring at 
Helga and at me. 

“The lady looks but poorly,” said Abraham, with his eyes fixed 
upon Helga, though he addressed me. “ Some people has their al- 
lowance of grief sarved out all at once. I earnestly hope, lady, 
that life’s agoing to luff up -with you now, and lead ye on a course 
that won’t take long to bring ye to the port of joyfulness.” 

He nodded at her emphatically with as much sympathy in his 
countenance as his weather-tanned flesh would suffer him to exhibit. 

“We have had a hard time,” she answered, gently. 

“ Much too hard for any girl to go through,” said I. “ Men, you 
must know this lady to be a complete sailor. She can take the 
wheel ; she can sound the well ; she has a nerve of steel at a mo- 
ment that would send a good many who consider themselves stout- 
hearted to their prayers. It is not the usage of the sea, Abraham, 
that makes her look poorly, as you say.” 

I noticed Jacob leaning forward with his hands upon his knees, 
staring at her. Suddenly he smacked his leg with the sound of a 
pistol-shot. 


Why, yes P lie fried / ‘ novj 



s 


























«► 




* 




THE ROMANCE OP A MONTH. H? 

“ Why, yes !” he cried ; “ now I’m sure of it. Wasn’t you once 
a boy, mum ?” 

“ What !” cried Abraham, turning indignantly upon him. 

A faint blush entered Helga’s face. 

“ What I mean is,” continued Jacob, “ when I last see ye, you was 
dressed up as a boy.” 

“ Yes,” said I — “ yes. And what then ?” 

“Whoy, then,” he cried, fetching his leg another violent slap, 
“ Pigsears Hall owes me a gallon o’ beer. When we was aboard the 
Dane,” he continued, addressing Abraham and talking with long- 
shore vehemence, “ I cotched sight of a boy that I says to myself 
thinks I is as sartin surely a female as that the Gull lightship’s paint- 
ed red. I told Pigsears Hall to look. i Gal in your eye !’ says he. 

‘ Bet ye a gallon of ale, Jacob, she’s as much a boy as Barney Par- 
son’s Willie !’ But we was too busy to argue, and we left the ship 
without thinking more about it. Now I’m reminded, and I’m right, 
and I calls ye to witness, Abraham, so that Pigsears mayn’t haul off 
from his wager.” 

“ To change the subject,” I said, abruptly, “ you men seem to have 
some queer names among you. Pigsears Hall ! Could any parson 
be got to christen a man so ?” 

“ ’Tain’t his right name,” said Abraham. “ It’s along of his ears 
that he’s got that title. There’s Stickenup Adams ; that’s ’cause he 
holds his thin nose so high. Then there’s Paper-collar Joe ; that’s 
’cause he likes to be genteel about the neck. We’ve all got nick- 
names. But in a voyage to Australey we gives ourselves the tarms 
our mothers knew us by.” 

“ What is your name ?” said I. 

“ Abraham Vise,” said he. 

“ Wise ?” 

“ I calls it Vise,” said he, looking a little disconcerted ; “ it’s wrote 
with a IP.” 

“ And your shipmates ?” 

“ Him,” he answered, indicating his comrade by jerking his chin 
at him, “is Jacob Minikin. Him that’s forrards is Tommy Budd.” 
He paused, with his eyes fixed upon Helga. “Jacob,” said lie, ad- 
dressing his mate while he steadfastly regarded the girl, “ I’ve been 
athinking, if so be as the gentleman and lady aren’t going to be put 
aboard a homeward-bounder in a hurry, how’s she to sleep ? Tell ye 
what it is,” said he, slowly, looking around at Jacob; “if to-night 
finds ’em aboard us we’ll have to tarn out of the forepeak. There’s 


lid 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART : 


a good enough bed for the likes of us men under that there raft,” 
said he, pointing to the wide recess that was roofed by the over- 
hanging of the deck of the forepeak. “ The lady looks as if nothen 
short of a twenty-four hours’ spell of sound sleep was going to do 
her good. But of course, as I was saying,” and now he was ad- 
dressing me, “ you and her may be aboard another craft, homeward 
bound, before the night comes.” 

“ I thank you, on behalf of the lady, for your proposal, Abraham,” 
said I. “ She wants rest, as you say ; but privacy must naturally be 
a condition of her resting comfortably in your forepeak. Six hours 
would suffice — ” 

“ Oh ! she can lie there all night,” said Jacob. 

At this moment the third man made his appearance. He rose, 
thrusting through a little square hatch, and with true longshore in- 
stincts, took a slow survey of the sea, with an occasional rub of his 
wrist along his eyes before coming aft. He glanced at Helga and 
me carelessly, as though we had long become familiar features of the 
lugger to his mind, and, giving Abraham a nod, exclaimed, with an- 
other look round the sea, “ A nice little air o’ wind out this marn- 
ing.” 

This fellow was a middle-aged man, probably forty-five. His coun- 
tenance was of a somewhat sour cast, his eyebrows thick and of an 
iron gray, and his eyes, deep-seated under them, gazed forth between 
lids whose rims were so red that they put a fancy into one of their 
being slowly eaten away by fire as a spark bites into tinder. The 
sulky curl of mouth expressed the born marine grumbler. His head- 
gear was of fur like Jacob’s ; but I observed that he was dressed in 
a long coat that had manifestly been cut for or worn by a parson. 
Under the flapping tails of this coat were exhibited a pair of very 
loose fearnaught trousers, terminating in a pair of large, gouty, square- 
toed shoes. 

“ What about breakfast ?” said he. “ Ain’t it toime to loight the 
f oire ?” 

“ Why, yes,” answered Abraham, “ and I dessay,” said he, look- 
ing at me, “ ye won’t be sorry to get a mouthful o’ wittles.” 

The sour -faced man named Tommy went forward, and was pres- 
ently busy in chopping up a piece of wood. 

“ There are some good rashers to be had out of those hams you 
took from the raft,” said I ; “ you will find the canned meat pleas- 
ant eating too. While you are getting breakfast I’ll explore your 
forepeak, with your permission.” 


THE ROMANCE OE A MONTH. 


119 


“ Sartinly,” answered Abraham. 

“ Come along, Helga,” said I, and we went forward. 

We dropped through the hatch and found ourselves in a little 
gloomy interior, much too shallow to stand erect in. There were 
four bunks, so contrived as to serve as seats and lockers as well as 
beds. There were no mattresses, but in each bunk was a little pile 
of blankets. 

“ A noble sea-parlor, Helga !” said I, laughing. 

“ It is better than the raft,” she answered. 

“ Aye, indeed ! but for all that not so good as to render us unwill- 
ing to leave this little lugger. You will never be able to sleep in 
one of these holes?” 

“ Oh yes,” she answered, with a note of cheerfulness in her voice ; 
“but I hope there may be no occasion. I shall not want to sleep 
till the night comes, and, before it comes, we may be in another ship 
journeying home — to your home, I mean,” she added, with a sigh. 

“ And not more mine than yours, so long as it will please you to 
make it yours. And now,” said I, “ that we may be as comfortable 
as possible — where are our friends’ toilet conveniences ? Their wash- 
basin is, no doubt, the ocean over the side, and I suspect a little lump 
of grease, used at long intervals, serves them for the soap they need. 
But there is plenty of refreshment to be had out of a salt-water rins- 
ing of the face. Stay you here, and I will hand you down what is 
to be found.” 

I regained the deck, and asked one of the men to draw me a 
bucket of salt-water. I then asked Abraham for a piece of sail-cloth 
to serve as a towel. 

“ Sail-cloth !” he cried. “ I’ll give ye the real thing and sliding 
open a locker in the stern-sheets, he extracted a couple of towels. 

“ Want any soap ?” said he. 

“ Soap !” cried I. “ Have you such a thing?” 

“ Why, what d’ye think we are ?” called the sour-faced man Tom- 
my, who was kneeling at the little stove and blowing into it to kin- 
dle some chips of wood. “ How’s a man to shave without soap ?” 

“Want a looking-glass?” said Abraham, handing me a lump of 
marine soap as he spoke. 

“Thank you,” said I, modestly. 

“ And here’s a comb,” said he, producing out of his trousers 
pocket a knife- shaped affair that he opened into a large brass 
comb. “ Anything more ?” 

“ What more have you ?” said I. 


120 


MY BANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Nothin’ saving a razor,” said he. 

This I did not require. I carried the bucket and the little bundle 
of unexpected conveniences to the hatch, and called to Helga. 

“ Here am I rich in spoils,” said I, softly. “ These boatmen are 
complete dandies. Here is soap, here are towels, here is a looking- 
glass, and here is a comb,” and having handed her these things I 
made my way aft again. 

“ We ha’n’t asked your name yet, sir,” said Abraham, who was at 
the tiller again, while the other two were busy at the stove getting 
the breakfast. 

“ Hugh Tregarthen,” said I. 

“ Thank ye,” said he ; “ and the lady ?” 

“ Helga Nielsen.” 

He nodded approvingly, as though pleased with the sound of the 
name. 

“She’s a nice little gal, upon my word,” said he; “too good to 
belong to any other country nor Britain. Them Danes gets hold 
of the English tongue wonderful fast. Take a Swede or a Dutch- 
man ; it’s yaw yaw with them to the end of their time. But I’ve 
met Danes as ye wouldn’t know from Deal men, so fust- class 
was their speech.” He slowly carried his chin to his shoulder to 
take a view of the weather astern, and then, fastening his eyes with 
longshore leisureness upon my face — and I now noticed for the first 
time that he slightly squinted — he said, “ It’s a good job that we 
fell in with ’ee, Mr. Tregarthen ; for if so be as you two had kept all 
on washing about on that there raft till noon to-day — and I give ye 
till noon — ye’d be wanting no man’s help nor prayers afterwards. 
It’s agoing to blow.” 

“Yes,” said I, “there’s wind enough in that sky there; in fact, 
it’s freshening a bit already, isn’t it ?” for I now perceived the keener 
feathering and sharper play upon the waters, and the harder and 
broader racing of the yeast that was pouring away from either quar- 
ter of the lugger. “ There’s been a shift of the wind, too, I think,” 
I added, trying to catch a sight of the dusky interior of a little cam- 
pass-box that stood on the seat close against Abraham. 

“ Yes, it’s drawed norradly,” he answered. “ I ain’t sorry, for it’s 
like justifying of me for not setting ye ashore. I did think, when 
the young lady asked me to steer for England, that I wasn’t acting 
the part of a human man in refusing of her, and for keeping all on 
stretching the distance between you and your home. But I reckoned 
upon the wind drawing ahead for a homeward-bound course, and 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


121 


now it has ; so that if we was to keep you a week and get ye 
aboard a steamer at the end of it you’d stand to get home sooner 
than if we was to down helium now and start aratching for your 
coast.” 

“We owe our lives to you,” said I, cordially. “Not likely that 
we could wish to inconvenience you by causing your lugger to swerve 
by so much as a foot from her course.” 


CHAPTER XI. 

HEADING SOUTH. 

Just then Helga rose through the hatch. I caught an expression 
of admiration in Abraham’s face at her floating, graceful manner of 
passing through the little aperture. 

“ She might ha’ been born and bred in a lugger,” said he to me, in 
a hoarse whisper. “ Whoy, with the werry choicest and elegantest 
o’ females it ’ud be no more ’n an awkward scramble to squeeze 
through that hole. Has she wings to her feet? I didn’t see her 
use her elbows, did you ? And, my precious limbs ! how easily she 
takes them thwarts !” by which he meant her manner of passing 
over the seats of the boat. 

Perhaps now I could find heart to admire the girl’s figure. Cer- 
tainly I had had but small spirit for observation of that kind aboard 
the raft, and there only had her shape been revealed to me ; for in 
the b^rk no hint was conveyed by her boyish attire of the charms it 
rudely and heavily concealed. The sparkling brine with which she 
had refreshed her face had put something of life into her pale cheeks, 
and there was a faint bloom in her complexion, that was slightly 
deepened by a delicate glow as she smiled in response to my smile 
and took a seat at my side. 

“Them rashers smells first-class!” said Abraham, with a hungry 
snuffle. “ It must be prime ham as ’ll steal to the nose, while cook- 
ing, dead in the vind’s eye.” 

“ Before breakfast is ready,” said I, “ I’ll imitate Miss Nielsen’s 
example and with that I went forward, drew a bucket of water, 
dropped into the forepeak, and enjoyed the most refreshing wash 
that I can call to mind. One needs to be shipwrecked to appreciate 


122 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


these seeming trifles. For my own part, I could scarcely realize that, 
saving my oil-skin coat, I had not removed a stitch of my clothes 
since I had run from my mother’s house to the life -boat. I came 
into the light that streamed into the little hatch, and took a view of 
myself in the looking-glass, and was surprised to find how trifling 
were the marks I bore of the severe, I may truly say the desperate, 
experiences I had passed through. My eyes retained their bright- 
ness, my cheeks their color. I was bearded, and therefore able to 
emerge triumphantly from a prolonged passage of marine disaster 
without requiring to use a razor. It is the stubbled chin that com- 
pletes the gauntness of the shipwrecked countenance. 

I have a lively recollection of that breakfast — our first meal aboard 
the Early Morn. Rashers of ham hissed in the frying-pan ; each of 
us grasped a thick china mug full of black coffee ; the bag of bis- 
cuits we had brought with us from the bark lay yawning at our feet, 
and every one helped himself. The boatmen chawed away solemnly, 
as though they were masticating quids of tobacco, each man falling 
to with a huge clasp-knife, that doubtless communicated a distinct 
flavor of tarred hemp to whatever the blade came in contact with. 
Indeed, they cut up their victuals as they might cut up tobacco; 
working at it with extended arms and backward - leaning posture, 
putting bits of the food together as though to fit their mouths, and 
then whipping the morsel on the tips of their knives through their 
leathery lips with a slow chaw, chaw, of their under-jaws that made 
one think of a cow busy with the cud. Their leisurely behavior car- 
ried me in imagination to the English sea-side ; for these were the 
sort of men who, swift as might be their movements in an hour of 
necessity, were the most loafing of loungers in times of idleness — 
men who could not stand upright, who polished the hardest granite 
by constant friction with their fearnaught trousers, but who were yet 
the fittest central objects imaginable for that prospect of golden sand, 
of calm blue sea, of marble -white pier, and terraces of cliff lifting 
their summits of sloping green high into the sweet, clear atmosphere, 
which one has in mind when one thinks of the holiday coast of the 
old home. 

The man named Thomas, having cooked the breakfast, had taken 
the helm, but the obligation of steering did not interfere with his 
eating. In fact, I observed that he steered with the small of his back, 
helping the helm now and again by a slight touch of the tiller with 
his elbow, while he fell to on the plate upon his knee. For my part, 
I was as hungry as a wolf, and fed heartily, as the old voyagers 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


123 


would have said. Helga, too, did very well ; indeed, her grief had 
half starved her, and mighty glad was I to see this fair and dainty 
little heart of oak making a meal ; for it was a good assurance in its 
way that she was fighting with her sorrow, and was beginning to 
look at the future without the bitter sadness that was in her gaze 
yesterday. 

But while we sat eating and chatting the wind continued to slow- 
ly freshen ; the foresheet had tautened to the rigidity of iron, and 
now and again the lugger made a plunge that would send a bright 
mass of white water rolling away from either bow. The wind, how- 
ever, was almost over the stern, and we bowled along before it on a 
level keel, save when some scend of sea, lifting her under the quar- 
ter, threw the little fabric along with a slanting mast and a sharper, 
drum -like rolling out of the heart of the distended canvas as the 
lugger recovered herself with a saucy swing to starboard. 

“ Who says we ain’t going to reach Australey ?” exclaimed Abra- 
ham, pulling out a short pipe and filling it, with a slow, satisfied 
grin at the yeasty dazzle over the lee rail to which the eye, fastened 
upon it, was stooped at times so close that the brain seemed to dance 
to the wild and brilliant gyrations of the milky race. 

“A strange fancy,” said I, “for a man to buy a Deal lugger for 
Sydney Bay !” 

“ If it warn’t for strange fancies,” said Thomas, with a sour glance, 
“ it ’ud be a poor lookout for the likes of such as me.” 

“ Tell ye what I’m agoing to miss in this here ramble,” exclaimed 
Jacob. “ That’s beer, mates.” 

“ Beer ’ll come the sweeter for the want of it,” said Abraham, with 
a sympathetic face. “ Still, I most say, when a man feels down there’s 
nothin’ like a point o’ beer.” 

“What’s drunk in your country, mum ?” said Jacob. 

“ Everything that you drink in England,” Helga answered, smil- 
ing. 

“ But I allow,” grunted Thomas, fixing a morose eye upon the 
horizon, “that the Scandinavians, as the Danes and likevise the 
Svedes, along with other nations, incloodin’ of the Roosians, is 
called, ben’t so particular in the matter o’ drink as the English, to 
say nothen’ o’ Dealmen. Whoy,” he added, with a voice of con- 
tempt, “ they’re often content to do without it. Capt’ns and own- 
ers know that. The Scandinavian fancies is so cheap, that you may 
fill your fo’k’sle with twenty sailors on tarms that ’ud starve six 
Enolishmen.” 


124 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ The Danes are good sailors,” said Helga, looking at him, “ and 
they are the better sailors because they are a sober people.” 

“ I’ve got nothen’ to say agin ’em as sailors,” retorted Thomas ; 
“ but they ships too cheap, mum — they ships too cheap.” 

“They will take what an Englishman will take!” exclaimed Helga, 
with a little sparkle in her eye. 

“ So they will, mum — so they will !” exclaimed Abraham, sooth- 
ingly. “ The Dane’s a fust-class sailor and a temperate man, and 
when Tommy there’ll give me an opportunity of saying as much 
for him I’ll proclaim it.” 

I was standing up, peering round the sea for perhaps the tenth 
time that morning, when, happening to have my eyes directed astern, 
as the lugger ran in one of her graceful, buoyant, soaring launches 
to the summit of a little surge — for the freshening of the wind had 
already set the water running in heaps, noticeable even now for 
weight and velocity aboard that open craft of eighteen tons, though 
from the height of a big ship the seas would have been no more than 
a pleasant wrinkling of the northerly swell — I say, happening to look 
astern at that moment, I caught sight of a flake of white poised star- 
like over the rim of the ocean. The lugger sank, then rose again, 
and again I spied that bland, moon-like point of canvas. 

“A sail!” said I, “but, unhappily, in chase of us. Always, in 
such times as these, whatever shows, shows at the wrong end.” 

Abraham stood up to look, saw the object, and seated himself in 
silence. 

“How are you heading the lugger?” cried I. 

“ Sou’-sou’-west,” he answered. 

“ What course have you determined on ?” said I, anxious to gather 
from the character of his navigation what might be our chances of 
falling in with the homeward-bounders. 

“ Why, keep on heading as we go,” he answered, “ till we strike 
the south-east trades, which are to be met with a-blowing at about 
two-and-twenty degrees no’the ; then bring the Airly Mam to about 
south. When the hequator’s crossed,” continued he, smoking, with 
his head well sunk between his coat collars, “ we strikes off to the 
west’ard again for the hisland of Trinidad — not to soightit; but 
when we gits into its latitude we starboards for the south-east trades 
and goes away for the Cape o’ Good Hope. Are ye anything of a 
navigator yourself ?” 

“ No,” I answered, which was true enough, though I was not so 
wholly ignorant of the art of conducting a ship from one place to 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


125 


another as not to listen with the utmost degree of astonishment to 
this simple boatman’s programme of the voyage to Australia. 

He whipped open the same locker from which he had taken the 
rough toilet articles, and extracted a little blue-backed track-chart of 
the world, which he opened and laid across his knees. 

“ I suppose ye can read, sir ?” said he, not at all designing to be 
offensive, as was readily gatherable from his countenance, merely 
putting the question, as I easily saw, out of his experience of the 
culture of Deal beach. 

Helga laughed. 

“Yes, I can read a little,” said I. 

“ Well, then,” said he, laying a twisted stump of thumb upon the 
chart, “here’s the whole blooming voyage wrote down by Capt’n 
Israel Brown, of the Turk's Head , a wessel that was in the Downs 
when my mates and me agreed for to undertake this job. He took 
me into his cabin, and pulling out this here chart, he marked these 
lines as you see down upon it. i There, Abraham !’ he says, says he, 
1 you steer according to these here directions, and your lugger ’ll hit 
Sydney Bay like threading a needle.’ ” 

I looked at the chart, and discovered that the course marked upon 
it would carry the lugger to the westward of Madeira. It was not 
suggested by the indications that any port was to be touched at, or, 
indeed, any land to be made until Table Bay was reached. The two 
men, Jacob and Tommy, were eying me eagerly, as though thirst- 
ing for an argument. This determined me not to hazard any criti- 
cism. I merely said, 

“ I understood from you, I think, that you depend upon ships 
supplying you with your wants ?” 

Abraham responded with an emphatic nod. 

Well, thought I, I suppose the fellows know what they are about; 
but in the face of that chart I could not but feel mightily thankful 
that Helga and I stood the chance of being transhipped long before 
experience should have taught the men that charity was as little to 
be depended upon at sea as ashore. They talked of five months, 
and even of six in making the run, and who was to question such 
a possibility when the distance, the size of the boat, the vast areas 
of furious tempest and of rotting calm which lay ahead were con- 
sidered ? The mere notion of the sense of profound tediousness, of 
sickening wearisomeness which must speedily come, sent a shudder 
through me when I looked at the open craft, whose length might 
have been measured by an active jumper in a couple of bounds, in 


126 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


which there was no space for walking, and for the matter of that 
not very much room for moving, what with the contiguity of the 
thwarts and the incumbrances of lockers, spare masts, and oars, the 
pump, the stove, the little deck forward, the boat, and the rest of 
the furniture. 

I asked Abraham how they managed in the matter of keeping a 
lookout. 

“ One tarns in for four hours, and t’other two keep the watch, 
one a-steering for two hours and the other relieving him arter- 
wards.” 

“ That gives you eight hours on deck and four hours sleep,” said 
Helga. 

“ Quite right, mum.” 

“ Eight hours of deck is too much,” she cried ; “ there should 
have been four of you. Then it would have been watch and watch.” 

“ Aye, and another share to bring down ourn,” exclaimed Thomas. 

“ Mr. Abraham,” said Helga, “ Mr. Tregarthen has told you that I 
can steer. I promise you that while I am at the helm the lugger’s 
course shall be as true as a hair, as you sailors say. I can also keep 
a lookout. Many and many a time have I kept watch on board 
my father’s ship. While we are with you, you must let me make 
one of your crew.” 

“I, too, am reckoned a middling hand at the helm,” said I; “so 
while we are here there will be five of us to do the lugger’s work.” 

Abraham looked at the girl admiringly. 

“You’re werry good, lady,” he said; “I dorn’t doubt your will- 
ingness. On board a ship I shouldn’t doubt your capacity ; but the 
handling of these here luggers is a job as needs the eddication of 
years. Us Deal boatmen are born into the work, and them as ain’t 
commonly perish when they tries their hand at it.” 

“ ’Sides, it’s a long woyage,” growled Thomas, “ and if more 
shares is to be made of it I’m for going home.” 

“ You’re always a-thinking of the shares, Tommy,” cried Abraham ; 
“ the gent and the lady means nothing but koindness. No, mum, 
thanking you all the same,” continued he, giving Helga an ungainly 
but respectful sea bow. “ You’re shipwrecked passengers, and our 
duty is to put ye in the way of getting home. That’s what you 
expect of us ; and what we expect of you is that you’ll make your 
minds easy and keep comfortable ontil ye leave us.” 

I thanked him warmly, and then stood up to take another look at 
the vessel that was overhauling us astern. She was rising fast, al- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 127 

ready dashing the sky past the blue ridges of the ocean with a broad 
gleam of canvas. 

“ Helga,” said I, softly, “ there is a large ship rapidly coming up 
astern. Shall we ask these men to put us aboard her ?” 

She fastened her pretty blue eyes thoughtfully upon me. 

“ She is not going home, Hugh.” 

“ No, nor is the lugger. That ship should make us a more com- 
fortable home than this little craft until we can get aboard another 
vessel.” 

She continued to eye me thoughtfully, and then said, “ This lugger 
will give us a better chance of getting home quickly than that ship. 
These men will run down to a vessel or even chase one to oblige us 
and to get rid of us ; but a ship like that,” said she, looking astern, 
“is always in a hurry when the wind blows, and is rarely very will- 
ing to back her topsail. And then think what a swift ship she must 
be, to judge from her manner of overtaking us ! The swifter, the 
worse for us, Hugh — I mean the farther you will be carried away 
from your home.” 

She met my eyes with a faint, wistful smile upon her face, as 
though she feared I would think her forward. 

“You are right, Helga,” said I. “You are every inch a sailor. 
We will stick to the lugger.” 

Abraham went forward to lie down, after instructing Jacob to 
arouse him at a quarter before noon, that he might shoot the sun. 
Thomas sat with a sulky countenance at the helm, and Jacob over- 
hung the rail close against the foresheet, his chin upon his hairy 
wrist, and his gaze levelled at the horizon after the mechanical 
fashion of the longshoreman afloat. At intervals the wind contin- 
ued to freshen in small “guns,” to use the expressive old term — in 
little blasts or shocks of squall, which flashed with a shriek into the 
concavity of the lug, leaving ( the wind steady again but stronger, 
with a higher tone in the moan of it above and a stormier boiling of 
the waters round about the lugger, that seemed to be swirling along 
as though a comet had got her in tow, -though this sense of speed 
was no doubt sharpened by the closeness of the hissing white waters 
to the rail. Yet shortly after ten o’clock the ship astern had risen 
to her water-line and was picking us up as though, forsooth, we were 
riding to a sea-anchor. 

A nobler ocean picture never delighted a landsman’s vision. The 
snow-white spires of the oncoming ship swayed with solemn and 
stately motions to the underrun of the quartering sea. She had 


128 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


studding-sails out to starboard, one mounting to another in a very 
pyramid of soft milky cloths, and her wings of jibs, almost becalmed, 
floated airily from mast-head to bowsprit and jib-boom end like sym- 
metric fragments of fleecy cloud rent from the stately mass of fabric 
that soared behind them brilliant in the flashing sunshine. Each 
time our lugger was hove upward I would spy the dazzling smother 
of the foam, which the sheering cutwater of the clipper, driven by a 
power greater than steam, was piling to the hawse-pipes, even to the 
very burying of the forecastle-head to some of the majestic structure’s 
courtesies. 

Helga watched her with clasped hands and parted lips and glowing 
blue eyes full of spirit and delight. The glorious sea-piece seemed 
to suspend memory in her ; all look of grief was gone out of her 
face, her very being appeared to have blended itself with that windy, 
flying, triumphant oceanic show, and her looks of elation, the aban- 
donment of herself to the impulse and the spirit of what she viewed, 
assured me that if ever Old Ocean owned a daughter its child was 
the pale, blue-eyed, yellow-haired maiden who sat with rapt gaze 
and swift respiration at my side. 

Jacob, who had been eying the ship listlessly, suddenly started 
into an air of life and astonishment. 

“ Whoy, Tommy,” cried he, grasping the rail and staring over the 
stern out of his hunched shoulders, “ pisen me, mate, if she ain’t the 
Thermoppilly /” 

Thomas slowly and sulkily turned his chin upon his shoulder, and, 
after a short stare, put his back again on the ship, and said, “ Yes, 
that’s the Thermoppilly right enough.” 

“ The Thermopylae ?” said I. “ Do you mean the famous Aber- 
deen clipper?” 

“ Aye,” cried Jacob, “ that’s her ! Ain’t she a beauty ? My oye, 
what a run ! What’s agoing to touch her ? Look at them mast- 
heads ! Tall enough to foul the stars, Tommy, and de-range the 
blooming solar system.” 

He beat his thigh in his enjoyment of the sight, and continued to 
deliver himself of a number of nautical observations expressive of 
his admiration and of the merits of the approaching vessel. 

She had slightly shifted her helm, as I might take it to have a 
look at ns, and would pass us close. The thunder of the wind in 
her towering heights came along to our ears in the sweep of the air 
in a low, continuous note of thunder. You could hear the boiling of 
the water bursting and pouring from her bows ; her copper gleamed 


is the clipper stormed past , Jacob sprang on to a thwart , and , in an ecstasy of greeting , shrieked out , ‘ How d’ye do , sir 

Glad to see ye , sir/’ ” 






THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


129 


to every starboard roll on the white peaks of the sea along her bends 
in dull flashes as of a stormy sunset, with a frequent starlike sparkling 
about her from brass or glass. How swiftly she was passing us I 
could not have imagined until she was on our quarter, and then 
abreast of us — so close that I could distinguish the face of a man 
standing aft looking at us, of the fellow at the wheel, of a man at 
the break of the short poop singing out orders in a voice whose 
every syllable rang clearly to our hearing. A crowd of seamen were 
engaged in getting in the lower studding-sail, and this great sail 
went melting out against the hard mottled-blue of the sky as the 
clipper stormed past. 

Jacob sprang on to a thwart, and, in an ecstasy of greeting that 
made a very windmill of his arms, shrieked rather than roared out, 
“ How d’ye do, sir? — how d’ye do, sir? How are ye, sir? Glad to 
see ye, sir.” 

The man that he addressed stared a moment, and hastily withdrew 
and returned with a binocular glass, which be levelled at us for a 
moment, then flourished his hand. 

“ What are you doing down here, Jacob?” he bawled. 

“Going to Australey !” shouted Jacob. 

“ Where *” roared the other. 

“ To Sydney, New South Vales !” shouted Jacob. 

The man, who was probably the captain, put his finger against 
his nose and wagged his head; but further speech was no longer 
possible. 

“ He don’t believe us !” roared Jacob to his mate, and forthwith 
fell to making twenty extravagant gestures towards the ship in noti- 
fication of his sincerity. 

The wonderful squareness of the ship’s canvas stole out as she 
gave us her stern, with the foam of her wake rushing from under 
the counter like to the dazzling backwash of a huge paddle-wheel, 
and she seemed to fill the south-west heaven with her cloths, so high 
and broad did those complicated pinions, soaring to the trucks, look 
to us from the low seat of the bounding and sputtering lugger. 

“ Lord now !” cried Jacob, “ if she’d only give us the end of a 
tow-rope !” 

“Yes,” said I, gazing with admiration at the beautiful figure of 
the ship rapidly forging ahead, and already diminishing into an ex- 
quisite daintiness and delicacy of shape and tint, “ you would not, 
in that case, have to talk of five and six months to Australia.” 

At a quarter before twelve she was the merest toy ahead, just a 
9 


130 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


glance of mother-of-pearl upon the horizon ; but by this hour it was 
blowing a strong breeze of wind, and when Abraham came out of 
the forepeak he called to Jacob, and between them they eased up 
the fore-halyards and hooked the sheet to the second staken — in other 
words, to a sort of cringle or loop, of which there were four ; then, 
having knotted the reef-points, Abraham came aft to seek for the 
sun. 

My humor was not a little pensive, for the sea that was now run- 
ning was a verification of the boatman’s words to me, and I could 
not keep my thoughts away from what must have happened to Helga 
and me had we not been mercifully taken off the raft. The lugger 
rose, buoyantly to each flickering, seething head; but, spite of my 
life-boat experiences, I could not help watching with a certain anx- 
iety the headlong rush of foam to her counter, nor could I feel the 
wild, ball-like toss the strong Atlantic surge would give to our egg- 
shell of a boat without misgiving as to the sort of weather she was 
likely to make should such another storm as had foundered the Anine 
come down upon the ocean. I was also vexed to the heart by the 
speed at which we were driving, and by the assurance, I was seafarer 
enough to understand, that in such a lump of a sea as was now run- 
ning there would be a very small probability indeed of our being 
able to board, or even to get alongside of, a homeward -bounder 
though twenty vessels, close-hauled for England, should travel past 
us in an hour. How far were we to be transported into this great 
ocean before the luck of the sea should put us in the way of return- 
ing home? These were considerations to greatly subdue my spirits; 
and there was also the horror that memory brought when I glanced 
at the sweeping, headlong waters and thought of the raft. 

I looked at Helga ; her eyes were slowly sweeping the horizon, 
and on their coming to mine the tender blue of them seemed to 
darken to a gentle smile. Whatever her heart might be thinking of, 
assuredly no trace of the misgivings which were worrying me were 
discernible in her. The shadow of the grief that had been upon her 
face during the morning had returned with the passing away of the 
life the noble picture of the ship had kindled in her ; but there was 
nothing in it to weaken in her lineaments their characteristic expres- 
sion of firmness and resolution and spirit. Her tremorless lips lay 
parted to the sweep of the wind ; her admirable little figure yielded 
to the bounding, often violent, jerking motions of the lugger with 
the grace of a consummate horsewoman who is one with the brave, 
swift creature she rides ; her short yellow hair trembled under the 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


131 


dark velvet-like skin of her turban-shaped hat, as though each gust 
raised a showering of gold-dust about her neck and cheeks. 

Yet I believe had I been under sentence of death I must have 
laughed outright at the spectacle of Abraham bobbing at the sun 
with an old-fashioned quadrant that might well have been in use for 
forty years. He stood up on straddled legs with the aged instru- 
ment at his eye, mopping and mowing at the luminary in the south, 
and biting hard in his puzzlement and efforts at a piece of tobacco 
that stood out in his cheeks like a knob. 

“ He’s a blazing long time in making height bells, hain’t he, to- 
day?” said Jacob, addressing Abraham, and referring to the sun. 

“ He’s all right,” answered Abraham, talking with his eye at the 
little telescope. “ You leave him to me, mate ; keep you quiet, and 
I’ll be telling you what o’clock it is presently.” 

Helga turned her head to conceal her face, and, indeed, no coun- 
tenance more comical than Abraham’s could be imagined, what with 
the mastication of his jaws, which kept his ears and the muscles of 
his forehead moving, and what with the intensity of the screwed-up 
expression of his closed eye and the slow wagging of his beard, like 
the tail of a pigeon newly alighted. 

“ Height bells !” he suddenly roared, in a voice of triumph, at the 
same time whipping out a huge silver watch, at which he stared for 
some moments, holding the watch out at arm’s-length as though time 
was not to be very easily read. “ Bio wed if it be’nt much more than 
eleven o’clock at Deal !” he cried. “ Only fancy being able to make 
or lose time as ye loike! Werry useful ashore, sir, that ’ud be,’ticu- 
larly when you’ve got a bill a-falling doo.” 

He then seated himself in the stern-sheets, and, producing a small 
book and a lead-pencil from the locker, went to work to calculate 
his latitude. It was a very rough, ready, and primitive sort of reck- 
oning. He eyed the paper with a knowing face, often scratching 
the hair over his ear and looking up at the sky with counting lips; 
then, being satisfied, he administered a nod all round, took out his 
chart, and having made a mark upon it, exclaimed, while he re- 
turned it to the locker, “ There, that job’s over till twelve okdock 
to-morrow.” This said, he extracted a log-book that already looked 
as though it had been twice round the world, together with a little 
penny bottle of ink and a pen, and, with the book open upon his 
knee, forthwith entered the latitude (as he made it) in the column 
ruled for that purpose ; but I could not see that he made any at- 
tempt even at guessing at his longitude, though I noticed that he 


132 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


wrote down the speed of his little craft, which he obtained — and 1 
dare say as correctly as if he had hove the log — by casting his eye 
over the side. 

“ How d’ye spell Thermoppilly ?” said he, addressing us generally. 

I told him. 

“Just want to state here that we sighted her, that’s all,” said 
he ; “ this here space with ‘ Observations ’ wrote atop has got to be 
filled up, I suppose ! At about wan o’clock this marning,” he ex- 
claimed, speaking very slowly and writing as he spoke, “ fell in with 
a raft — how’s raft spelt, master ? two r’s ?” — I spelled the word for 
him. — “ Thank’ee ! Fell in with a raft, and took off a lady and gent. 
There, that’ll be the noose for twenty-four hours ! Now let’s go to 
dinner.” 

This midday meal was composed of a piece of corned beef, some 
ship’s biscuit, and cheese. I might have found a better appetite had 
there been less wind, and had the boat’s head been pointed the other 
way. All the time now the lugger was swarming through it at the 
rate of steam. There was already a strong sea running, too, the storm- 
iness of which we should have felt had we had it on the bow ; but 
our arrowy speeding before it softened the fierceness of its sweeping 
hurls, and the wind for the same reason came with half the weight it 
really had, though we must have been reefed down to a mere strip 
of canvas had we been close-hauled. The sun shone with a dim and 
windy light out of the sky that was hard with a piebalding of cloud. 

“ What is the weather going to prove ?” I asked Abraham. 

He munched leisurely, with a slow look to windward, and answered, 
“ ’Tain’t going to be worse nor ye see it.” 

“ Have you a barometer ?” said I. 

“ No,” he answered ; “they’re no good. In a boat arter this here 
pattern what’s the use of knowing what’s agoing to come ? It’s only 
a-letting go a rope an’ you’re under bare poles. Marcury ’s all very 
well in a big ship, where ye may be taken aback clean out o’ the 
sky, and lose every spar down to the stumps of the lower masts.” 

Though I constantly kept a lookout, sending my eyes roaming 
over either bow past the smooth and foaming curves of seas rushing 
ahead of us, I was very sensible, as I have said, that nothing was to 
be done in such hollow w-aters as we were now rushing through, 
though we should sight a score of homeward-bounders. Yet, spite 
of the wonderful life that strong northerly wind swept into the ocean, 
nothing whatever showed during the rest of the day, if I except a 
single tip of canvas that hovered for about a quarter of an hour 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


133 


some two or three leagues down in the east like a little wreath of 
mountain mist. The incessant pouring of the wind past the ear, the 
shouting and whistling of it as it flashed spray-loaded off each foam- 
ing peak in chase of us, grew inexpressibly sickening and wearying 
to me, coming as it did after our long exposure to the fierce weather 
of the earlier days. The thwarts or lockers brought our heads above 
the line of the gunwale, and to remedy this I asked leave to drag a 
spare sail aft into the bottom of the boat, and there Helga and I sat, 
somewhat sheltered at least, and capable of conversing without being 
obliged to cry out. 


CHAPTER XII. / 

A LONGSHORE QUARREL. 

We passed the afternoon in this way. Jacob was forward, sleep- 
ing ; Thomas’s turn at the helm had come round again ; and Abra- 
ham lay over the lee rail, within grasp of the fore-sheet, lost in con- 
templation of the rushing waters. 

“ Where and when is this experience of ours going to end ?” said 
I to Helga as we sat chatting. 

“How fast are we travelling?” she asked. 

“ Between eight and nine miles an hour,” I answered. 

“This has been our speed during the greater part of the day,” 
she said. “ Your home grows more and more distant, Hugh ; but 
you will return to it.” 

“ Oh, I fear for neither of us, Helga,” said I. “ Were it not for 
my mother, I should not be anxious. But it will soon be a week 
since I left her, and if she should hear that I was blown away out of 
the bay in the Anine she will conclude that I perished in the vessel.” 

“ We must pray that God will support her and give her strength 
to await your return,” said she, speaking sadly, with her eyes bent 
down. 

What more could she say ? It was one of those passages in life in 
which one is made to feel that Providence is all in all, when the very 
instinct of human action in one is arrested, and when there comes 
upon the spirit a deep pause of waiting for God’s will. 

I looked at her earnestly as she sat by my side, and found myself 
dwelling with an almost lover-like pleasure upon the graces of her 


134 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


pale face, the delicacy of her lineaments, the refinement of prettiness 
that was heightened into something of dignity, maidenly as it was, 
by the fortitude of spirit her countenance expressed. 

“ Helga,” said I, “ what will you do when you return to Kolding?” 

“ I shall have to think,” she answered, with the scarcely percep- 
tible accent of a passing tremor in her voice. 

“You have no relatives, your father told me?” 

“No ; none. A few friends, but no relatives.” 

•“ But your father has a house at Kolding ?” 

“ He rented a house, but it will be no home for me if I cannot 
afford to maintain it. But let my future be my trouble, Hugh,” said 
she, gently, looking at me, and always pronouncing my name as a sis- 
ter might a brother’s. 

“Oh, no!” said I. “I am under a promise to your father — a 
promise that his death makes binding as a sacred oath upon me. 
Your future must be my business. If I carry you home in safety — 
I mean to my mother’s home, Helga — I shall consider that I saved 
your life ; and the life a man rescues it should be his privilege to 
render as easy and happy as it may lie in his power to make it. 
You have friends in my mother and me, even though you had not 
another in the wide world. So, Helga,” said I, taking her hand, 
“ however our strange rambles may end, you will promise me not to 
fret over what your future may hold when you get ashore.” 

She looked at me with her eyes impassioned with gratitude. Her 
lips moved, but no word escaped her, and she averted her face to hide 
her tears. 

Poor, brave, gentle, little Helga! I spoke but out of my friend- 
ship and my sympathy for her — as who would not, situated as I was 
with her — ray companion in distress, now an orphan, desolate, friend- 
less, and poor? Yet I little knew then, heedless, and inexperienced 
as I was in such matters, how pity in the heart of a young man will 
swiftly sweeten into deeper emotion when the object of it is young 
and fair and loving and alone in the world. 

The sun went down on a wild scene of troubled, running, foaming 
waters, darkling into green as they leaped and broke along the west- 
ern sky that was of a thunderous, smoky tincture, with a hot, dim, 
and stormy scarlet which flushed the clouds to the zenith. Yet there 
had been no increase in the wind during the afternoon. It had set- 
tled into a hard breeze, good for outward-bounders, but of a sort to 
send everything heading north that was not steam scattering east and 
west, with yards fore-and-aft and tacks complaining. 


THE ROMANCE OP A MONTH. 


135 


By this time I had grown very well used to the motion of the 
lugger, had marked her easy flight from liquid peak into foam-laced 
valley, the onward buoyant bound again, the steady rush upon the 
head of the creaming sea, with foam to the line of the bulwark-rail, 
and the air for an instant snow-like with flying spume, and all the 
while the inside of the boat as dry as toast. This, I say, I had no- 
ticed with increasing admiration of the sea-going qualities of the 
hearty, bouncing, stalwart little fabric ; and I was no longer sensible 
of the anxiety that had before possessed me when I had thought of 
this undecked lugger struggling with a strong and lumpish sea — a 
mere yawn upon the water, saving her forecastle — so that a single 
billow tumbling over the rail must send her to the bottom. 

“ Small wonder,” said I to Helga, as we sat watching the sunset 
and marking the behavior of the boat, “ that these Deal luggers 
should have the greatest reputation of any longshore craft around 
the English coasts, if they are all like this vessel ! Her crew’s ad- 
venture for Australia is no longer the astonishment I first found it. 
One might fearlessly sail round the world in such a craft.” 

“Yes,” she answered, softly, in my ear — for surly Thomas sat hard 
by — “if the men had the qualities of the boat! But how are they 
to reach Australia without knowing their longitude ? And if you 
were one of the party, would you trust Abraham’s latitude? My 
father taught me navigation ; and, though I am far from skilful at it, 
I know quite enough to feel sure that such a rough observation as 
Abraham took to-day will, every twenty-four hours, make him three 
or four miles wrong, even in his latitude. Where, then, will the Early 
Morn blunder to ?” 

“ Well, they are plainly a sensitive crew,” said I, “ and if we want 
their good-will our business is to carry admiring faces, to find every- 
thing right, and say nothing.” 

This chat was ended by Abraham joining us. 

“Now, lady,” said he, “when would ye like to tarn in? The fore- 
peak’s to be yourn for the night. Name your hour, and whosoever’s 
in it ’ll have to clear out.” 

“ I am grateful, indeed !” she exclaimed, putting her hand upon his 
great hairy paw, in a pretty, caressing way. 

“ Abraham,” said I, “ I hope we shall meet again after we have 
separated. I’ll not forget your kindness to Miss Nielsen.” 

“ Say nothen’ about it, sir ; say nothen’ about it,” he cried, heartily. 
“ She’s a sailor’s daughter, for all he warn’t an Englishman. Her 
father lies drownded, Mr. Tregarthen. If he was like his lass he’ll 


136 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


have had a good heart, sir, and the sort of countenance one takes to 
at the first sight o’t.” By the rusty light still living in the west I 
saw him turn his head to look forward and then aft ; then lowering 
his voice into a deep sea growl he exclaimed, “ There’s wan thing I 
should like to say : there’s no call for either of ye to take any notice 
along of old Tommy. His feelings is all right ; it’s his vays as are 
wrong. Fact is,” and here he sent another look forward and then 
aft, “ Tommy’s been a disappinted man in his marriages. His first 
vife took to drink, and was always a-combing of his hair with a three- 
legged stool, as Jack says. His second vife had the heart of a flint, 
spite of her prowiding him with ten children, fower by her first and 
six by Tommy. Of course it’s got nothen’ to do with me\ but there 
ain’t the loike of Molly Budd — I mean Tommy’s vife — in all Deal — 
aye, ye may say in all Kent — for vickedness. Tommy owned to me 
wan day that though she ’d lost children — aye, and though she ’d lost 
good money tew, he ’d never knowed her to shed a tear saving wonst. 
That was when she went out a-chairing. The master of the house 
had been in the habit of leaving the beer-key in the cask for th’ ale 
to be sarved out by the hupper servant. Molly Budd was a-cleaning 
there one day, when down comes word for the key to be drawed out 
of the cask, and never no more to be left in it. This started Molly. 
She broke down and cried for a hour. Tommy had some hopes of 
her on that, but she dried up arterwards, and has never showed any 
sort of weakness since. But, of course, this is between you and me 
and the bedpost, Mr. Tregarthen.” 

“ Oh, certainly !” said I. 

“ And now about the lady’s sleeping,” he continued. 

I was anxious to see her snugly under cover ; but she was in 
trouble to know how I was to get rest. I pointed to the open space 
under that overhanging ledge of deck which I have before described, 
and told her that I should find as good a bedroom there as I needed. 
So, after some little discussion, it was arranged that she should take 
possession of the forepeak at nine o’clock, and meanwhile Abraham 
undertook to so bulkhead the opening under the deck with a spare 
mizzen-mast, yard, and sail as to insure as much shelter as I should 
require. I believe he observed Helga’s solicitude about me, and pro- 
posed this merely to please her ; and for the same motive I con- 
sented, though I was very unwilling secretly to give the poor honest 
fellows any unnecessary trouble. 

When the twilight died out, the night came down very black. A 
few lean, windy stars hovered wanly in the dark heights, and no light 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


13V 


whatever fell from the sky ; but the atmosphere low down upon the 
ocean was pale with the glare of the foam that was plentifully arch- 
ing from the heads of the seas, and this vague illumination was in the 
boat to the degree that our figures were almost visible one to an- 
other. Indeed, a sort of wave of ghastly sheen would pass through 
the darkness amid which we sat each time the lugger buried herself 
in the foam raised by her shearing bounds, as though the dim re- 
flection of a giant lantern had been thrown upon us from on high by 
some vast shadowy hand searching for what might be upon the sea. 

When nine o’clock arrived, Abraham went forward and routed 
Thomas out of the forepeak. The man muttered as he came aft to 
where we were, but I was resolved to have no ears for anything he 
might say at such a time. A sailor disturbed in his rest, grim, un- 
shorn, scarcely awake, with the nipping night blast to exchange for 
his blanket, is proverbially the sulkiest and most growling of human 
wretches. 

“ I will see you to your chamber door, Helga,” said I, laughing. 
“ Abraham, can you spare the lady this lantern ? She will not long 
need it.” 

“ She can have it as long as she likes,” he answered. “ Good-night 
to you, mum, and I hope you’ll sleep well, I’m sure. Feared ye’ll 
find the forepeak a bit noisy arter the silence of a big vessel’s cabin.” 

She made some answer, and I picked up the lantern that had been 
placed in the bottom of the boat for us to sit round, and, with my 
companion, went clambering over the thwarts to the hatch. 

“ It is a dark little hole for you*to sleep in, Helga,” said I, hold- 
ing the lantern over the hatch while I peered down, “ but then — 
this time last night ! Our chances we now know, but what were our 
hopes ?” 

“ We may be even safer this time to-morrow night,” she answered, 
“ and rapidly making for England, let us pray !” 

“ Aye, indeed !” said I. “ Well, if you will get below, I will hand 
you down the light. Good-night, sleep well, and God bless you.” 

I grasped and held her hand, then let it go, and she descended, 
carrying with her the little parcel she had brought with her from 
the bark. 

I gave her the lantern, and returned to smoke a pipe in the bot- 
tom of the boat under the shelter of the stern-sheets, before crawl- 
ing to the sail that was to form my bed under the overhanging deck. 
Thomas, whose watch below it still was, was already resting under 
the ledge, Abraham steered, and Jacob sat with a pipe in his mouth 


138 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


to leeward. I noticed that one of these men always placed himself 
within instant reach of the fore-sheet. Abraham’s talk altogether 
concerned Helga. He asked many questions about her, and got me 
to tell for the second time the story of her father’s death upon the 
raft. He frequently broke into homely expressions of sympathy, 
and when I paused, after telling him that the girl was an orphan and 
without means, he said, 

“ Beg pardon, Mr. Tregarthen ; but might I make so bold as to 
ask if so be as you’re a married man ?” 

“ No,” said I, “ I am single.” 

“ And is her heart her own, sir, d’ye know ?” said he. “ For as 
like as not there may be some young Danish gent as keeps company 
with her ashore.” 

“ I can’t tell you that,” said I. 

“ If so be as her heart’s her own,” said he, “ then I think even old 
Tommy could tell ’ee what’s agoing to happen.” 

“ What do you mean ?” I asked. 

“ Why, of course,” said he, “ you’re bound to marry her !” 

As she was out of hearing, I could well afford to laugh. 

“ Well,” said I, “ the sea has been the cause of more wonderful 
things than that ! Anyway, if I’m to marry her, you must put me 
in the way of doing so by sending us home as soon as you can.” 

“ Oy,” said he, “ that we’ll do, and I don’t reckon, master, that 
you’d be dispoged to wait ontil we’ve returned from Australey, that 
Tommy and me and Jacob might have the satisfaction of drinking 
your healths and cutting a caper $t your marriage.” 

Jacob broke into a short roar that might or might not have de- 
noted a laugh. 

“ I shall now turn in,” said I, “ for I am sleepy. But first I will 
see if Miss Nielson is in want of anything, and bring the lantern aft 
to you.” 

I went forward and looked down the hatch. By stooping, so as 
to bring my face on a level with the coaming, I could see the girl. 
She had placed the lantern in her bunk, and was kneeling in prayer. 
Her mother’s picture was placed behind the lantern, where it lay vis- 
ible to her, and she held the Bible she had brought from the bark ; 
but that she could read it in that light I doubted. I supposed, there- 
fore, that she grasped it for its sacredness as an object and a relic 
while she prayed as a Roman Catholic might hold a crucifix. 

I cannot express how much I was affected by this simple picture. 
Not for a million would I have wished her to know that I watched 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


139 


her ; and yet, knowing that she was unconscious I was near, I felt I 
was no intruder. She had removed her hat; the lantern-light touched 
her pale hair, and I could see her lips moving as she prayed, with a 
frequent lifting of her soft eyes. But the beauty, the wonder, the 
impressiveness of this picture of maidenly devotion came to it from 
what surrounded it. The little forepeak, dimly irradiated, showed 
like some fancy of an old painter upon the shadows and lights of 
whose masterly canvas lies the gloom of time. The strong wind 
was full of the noise of warring waters, and of its own wild crying; 
the foam of the surge roared about the lugger’s cleaving bows, and 
to this was to be added the swift leaps, the level poising, the shoot- 
ing, downward rushes of the little structure upon that wide, dark 
breast of wind-swept Atlantic. 

She rose to her feet, and, stooping always, for her stature exceeded 
the height of the upper deck, she carefully replaced the Bible and 
picture in their cover. I withdrew, and after waiting a minute or 
two, I approached again and called down to ask if all was well with 
her. 

“ Yes, Hugh,” she answered, coming under the hatch with the 
lantern. “ I have made my bed. It was easily made. Will you 
take this light? The men may want it, and I shall not need to see 
down here.” 

I grasped the lantern, and told her I would hold it in the hatch 
that it might light her while she got into her bunk. 

“ Good-night, Hugh,” said she, and presently called, in her clear, 
gentle voice, to let me know that she was lying down ; on w r hich I 
took the lantern aft, and, without more ado, crawled under the plat- 
form, or raft, as the Deal boatmen called it, crept into a sail, and in 
a few moments was sound asleep. 

And now for three days, incredible as it will appear to those who 
are acquainted with that part of the sea which the lugger was then 
traversing, we sighted nothing — nothing, I mean, that provided us 
with the slenderest opportunity of speaking it. At very long in- 
tervals, it would be a little streak of canvas on the starboard or port 
sea-line, or some smudge of smoke from a steamer whose funnel was 
below the horizon ; nothing more, and these so remote that the dim 
apparitions were as useless to us as though they had never been. 

The wind held northerly, and on the Friday and Saturday it blew 
freshly, and in those hours Abraham reckoned that the Early Morn 
had done a good two hundred and twenty miles in every day, counting 
from noon to noon. I was forever searching the sea, and Helga’s 


140 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


gaze was as constant as mine; until the eternal barrenness of the 
sinuous line of the ocean induced a kind of heart-sickness in me, and 
I would dismount from the thwart in a passion «of vexation and dis- 
appointment, asking what had happened that no ship showed ? Into 
what part of the sea had we drifted? Could this veritably be the 
confines of the Atlantic off the Biscayan coast and waters? or had 
we been transported by some devil into an unnavigated tract of ocean 
on the other side of the world ? 

“ There’s no want of ships,” Abraham said. “ The cuss of the 
matter is, we don’t fall in with them. S’elp me, if I could only find 
one to give me a chance, I’d chivey her even if she showed the can- 
vas of a R'yal Jarge .” 

“ If this goes on you’ll have to carry us to Australia,” said I, guess- 
ing from my spirits as I spoke that I was carrying an uncommonly 
long and dismal countenance. 

“ Hope not,” exclaimed sour Tommy, who was at the helm at this 
time of conversation. “’Tain’t that we objects to your company; 
but where’s the grub for five souls a-coming from ?” 

“ Don’t say nothen’ about that,” said Abraham, sharply. “ Both 
the gent and the lady brought their own grub along with them. 
That ye know, Tommy, and I allow that ye hain’t found their ham 
bad eating either. They came,” he added, softening as he looked 
at his mate, “ like a poor man’s twins, each with a loaf clapped by 
the angels on to its back.” 

It was true enough that the provisions which had been removed 
from the raft would have sufficed Helga and me — well, I dare say, 
for a whole month, and perhaps six weeks, but for the three of a crew 
falling to the stock; and therefore I was not concerned by the re- 
flection that we were eating into the poor fellow’s slender larder. 
But, for all that, Thomas’s remark touched me closely. I felt that 
if the three fellows, hearty and sailorly as were Abraham and Jacob 
— I say, I felt that if these three men were not already weary of us 
they must soon become so, more particularly if it should happen 
that they met with no ship to supply them with what they might 
require ; in which case they would have to make for the nearest port, 
a delay they would attribute to us, and that might set them grum- 
bling in their gizzards, and render us both miserable until we got 
ashore. 

However, I was no necromancer; I could not conjure up ships, 
and staring at the sea-line did not help us ; but I very well remem- 
ber that that time of waiting and of expectation and of disappoint- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


141 


ment lay very heavily upon my spirits. There was something so 
strange in the desolation of this sea that I became melancholy and 
imaginative, and I remember that I foreboded a dark issue to my ex- 
traordinary adventure with Helga, insomuch that I took to heart a 
secret conviction I should never again see my mother — nay, that I 
should never again see my home. 

Sunday morning came. I found a fine bright day when I crawled 
out of my sail under the overhanging ledge. The wind had come 
out of the east in the night, and the Early Morn , with her sheet aft, 
was buzzing over the long swell that came flowing and brimming to 
her side in lines of radiance in the flashing wake of the sun. Jacob 
was at the tiller, and, on my emerging, he instantly pointed ahead. I 
jumped on to a thwart, and perceived directly over the bows the 
leaning, alabaster-like shaft of a ship’s canvas. 

“ How is she steering ?” I cried. 

“ Slap for us,” he answered. 

“Come!” I exclaimed, with a sudden delight, “ we shall be giving 
you a farewell shake of the hand at last, I hope. You’ll have to 
signal her,” I went on, looking at the lugger’s mast-head. “ What 
colors will you fly to make her know your wants?” 

“Ye see that there pole?” exclaimed Thomas, in a grunting voice, 
pointing with a shovel-ended forefinger to the spare booms along the 
side of the boat. I nodded. “ Well,” said he, “ I suppose you know 
what the Jack is?” 

“ Certainly,” said I. 

“ Well,” he repeated, “ we seizes the Jack on to that there pole 
and hangs it over, and if that don’t stop ’em it’ll be ’cause they have 
a cargo of wheat aboard, the fumes of which ’ll have entered their 
eyes and struck ’em bloind.” 

“ That’s so,” said Jacob, with a nod. 

Just then Abraham came from under the deck, and in another 
moment Helga rose through the little hatch, and they both joined us. 

“ At last, Helga !” I cried, with a triumphant face, pointing. 

She looked with her clear blue eyes for a little while in silence at 
the approaching vessel, as though to make sure of the direction she 
was heading in, then, clasping her hands, she exclaimed, drawing a 
breath like a sigh, “ Yes, at last. Hugh, your home is not so very 
far off now.” 

“ What’s she loike ?” said Abraham, bringing his knuckles out of 
his eyes and staring. 

He went to the locker for a little, old-fashioned, longshore tele- 


142 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


scope, pointed it, and said, “ A bit of a bark. A f urriner.” He 
peered again. “ A Hamburger !” cried he. “ Look, Tommy !” 

The man put the glass to his eye and leaned against the rail, and 
his mouth lay with a sour curl under the little telescope as he stared 
through it. 

“Yes, a whoite hull and a Hamburger,” said he, “and she’s com- 
ing along, tew. There’ll be no time, I allow, to bile the coffee-pot 
afore she’s abreast,” he added, casting a hungry, morose eye towards 
the little cooking-stove. 

“ Ye can loight the foire, Tommy,” said Abraham, “whoilst I sig- 
nalize her;” saying which, he took an English Jack out of that lock- 
er in which he kept the soap, towels, and, as it seemed to me, pretty 
well all the crew’s little belongings, and having secured the flag to 
the end of the pole, he thrust it over the side and fell to motioning 
with it, continuing to do so until it was impossible to doubt that the 
people of the little bark had beheld the signal. He then let the pole 
with the flag flying upon it rest upon the rail, and took hold of the 
fore-halyards in readiness to let the sail drop. 

I awaited the approach of the bark with breathless anxiety. I 
never questioned for a moment that she would take us aboard, and 
my thoughts flew ahead to the moment when Helga and I should be 
safely in her ; when we should be looking round and finding a stout 
little ship under our feet, the lugger with her poor, plucky Deal sail- 
ors standing away from us to the southward, and the horizon past 
which lay the coast of Old England fair over the bows. 

“ Shove us close alongside, Jacob,” cried Abraham. 

“ Shall ’ee hook on, Abraham ?” inquired Jacob. 

“No call to it,” answered Abraham. “We’ll down lug and hail 
her. She’ll back her tawps, and I’ll put the parties aboard in the 
punt.” 

“ I have left my parcel in the forepeak,” said Helga, and was go- 
ing for it. 

“ I’m nimbler than you can be now, Helga,” said I, smiling, and 
meaning that now she was in her girlish attire she had not my ac- 
tivity. 

I jumped forward and plunged down the hatch, took the parcel 
out of the bunk, and returned with it, all in such a wild, feverish 
hurry that one might have supposed the lugger was sinking, and that 
a moment of time might signify life or death to me. Abraham 
grinned, but made no remark. Thomas, on his knees before the 
stove, was sulkily blowing at some shavings he had kindled. Jacob, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


143 


with a wooden face at the tiller, was keeping the bows of the Early 
Morn on a line with the oncoming vessel. 

The bark was under a full breast of canvas, and was heeling pret- 
tily to the pleasant breeze of wind that was gushing brilliantly out 
of the eastern range of heaven, made glorious by the soaring sun. 
Her hull sat white as milk upon the dark-blue water, and her canvas 
rose in squares which resembled mother-of-pearl with the intermixt- 
ure of shadow and flashing light upon them occasioned by her roll- 
ing, so that the cloths looked shot like watered silk or like the in- 
side of an oyster-shell. But it was distance, on top of the delight 
that her coming raised in me, which gave her the enchantment I 
found in her, for as she approached her hull lost its snow-like glare, 
and showed somewhat dingily with rusty stains from the scupper- 
holes. Her canvas, too, lost its symmetry, and exhibited an ill-set 
pile of cloths, most of the clews straining at a distance from the 
yard-arm sheave-holes, and I also took notice of the disfigurement 
of a stump foretop-gallant mast. 

“ Dirty as a Portugee !” said Abraham ; “ yet she’s Jarman, all 
the same.” 

“ I never took kindly to the Jarmans myself,” said Jacob ; “ they’re 
a shoving people, but they aren’t clean. Give me the Dutch ! What’s 
to beat their cheeses? There’s nothing made in England in the 
cheese line as aquils them Dutch cannon-balls — all pink outside and 
all cream hin.” 

“Do you mean, by a Hamburger, a Hamburg ship?” asked Helga. 

“Yes, lady; that’s right,” answered Abraham. 

“ Then she’s bound to Hamburg,” said the girl. 

“ Ask yourself the .question,” answered Abraham, which is the 
Deal boatmen’s way of saying yes. 

She looked at me. 

“It will be all the same,” said I, interpreting the glance; “Eng- 
land is but over the way from Hamburg. Let us be homeward 
bound, in any case. We have made southing enough, Helga.” 

“ Tommy,” sung out Abraham, “ give that there Jack another 
flourish, will ye?” 

The man did so, with many strange contortions of his powerful 
frame, and then put down the pole and returned to the stove. 

“ There don’t seem much life aboard of her,” said Jacob, eying 
the bark. “ I can only count wan head ower the fo’k’sle rail.” 

“ Up helium, Jacob !” bawled Abraham ; and as he said the words 
he let go the fore-halyards and down came the sail. 


144 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


The lugger, with nothing showing but her little mizzen, lost way, 
and rose and fell quietly beam-on to the bark, whose head was di- 
rectly at us, as though she must cut us down. When she was within 
a few cables’ length of us she slightly shifted her helm and drew 
out. A man sprang on to her forecastle rail and yelled at us, bran- 
dishing his arms in a motioning way, as though in abuse of us for 
getting into the road. We strained our ears. 

“What do ’ee say?” growled Abraham, looking at Helga. 

“ I do not understand him,” she answered. 

“ Bark ahoy !” roared Abraham. 

The man on the forecastle - head fell silent, and watched us over 
his folded arms. 

“ Bark ahoy !” yelled Jacob. 

The vessel was now showing her length to us. On Jacob shout- 
ing, a man came very quietly to the bulwarks near the mizzen-rig- 
ging, and with sluggish motions got upon *the rail, where he stood 
holding on by a backstay, gazing at us lifelessly. The vessel was 
so close that I could distinguish every feature of the fellow, and I 
see him now, as I write, with his fur cap and long coat and half- 
boots and beard like oakum. The vessel was manifestly steered by 
a wheel deep behind the deck-house, and neither helm nor helms- 
man was visible — no living being, indeed, saving the motionless fig- 
ure on the forecastle-head, and the equally lifeless figure holding on 
by the backstay aft. 

“ Bark ahoy !” thundered Abraham. “ Back your tawps’l, will ’ee? 
Here’s a lady and gent as w r e wants to put aboard ye ; they’re in dis- 
tress — they’ve bin shipwreckt — they wants to git home. Heave to, 
for Gord’s sake, if so be as you’re men /” 

Neither figure showed any indications of vitality. 

“What! are they corpses?” cried Abraham. 

“ No, they’re wuss — they’re Jarmens !” answered Jacob, spitting 
fiercely. 

On a sudden the fellow who was aft nodded at us, then kissed his 
hand, solemnly dismounted, and vanished, leaving no one in sight 
but the man forward, who a minute later disappeared also. 

Abraham drew a deep breath and looked at me. His countenance 
suddenly changed. His face crimsoned with temper, and with a 
strange, ungainly, longshore plunge he sprang on top of the gun- 
wale, supporting himself by a grip of the burton of the mizzen-mast 
with one hand, while he shook his other fist in a very ecstasy of pas- 
sion at the retreating vessel. 


Helga took me by the arm . ‘ Oh, Hugh, silence them ! — they will come to blows. 


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THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


145 


“Call yourselves men!” he roared. “I’ll have the law along of 
ye ! It ’ll be me as ’ll report ye ! Don’t think as I can’t spell. 
H, A, N y Sy A — Hansa. There it is, wrote big as life on your 
blooming starn ! I’ll remember ye! You sausage - eaters ! — you 
scowbankers ! — you scaramouches ! — you varmint ! Call yourselves 
sailors ? Only gi’ me a chance of getting alongside !” 

He continued to rage in this fashion, interlarding his language 
with words which sent Helga to the boat’s side, and held her there 
with averted face ; but, all the same, it was impossible to keep one’s 
gravity. Vexed, maddened, indeed, as I was by the disappointment, 
it was as much as I could do to hold my countenance. The absurd- 
ity lay in this raving at a vessel that had passed swiftly out of hear- 
ing, and upon whose deck not a living soul was visible. 

Having exhausted all that he was able to think of in the way of 
abuse, Abraham dismounted, flung his cap into the bottom of the 
boat, and drying his brow by passing the whole length of his arm 
along it, he exclaimed, 

“ There ! — now I’ve given ’em something to think of !” 

“ Why, there was ne’er a soul to hear a word ye said,” said Thom- 
as, who was still busy at the stove, without looking up. 

“ See here !” shouted Abraham, rounding upon him with the heat 
of a man glad of another excuse to quarrel. “Dorn’t you have 
nothen’ to say. No sarce from yoUy and so I tells ye. I know all 
about ye. When did ye pay your rent last, eh ? Answer me that !” 
he sneered. 

“ Oh, that’s it, is it? that’s the time o’ day, eh ?” growled Thomas, 
looking slowly but fiercely round upon Abraham, and stolidly rising 
into a menacing posture, that was made wholly ridiculous by the 
clergyman’s coat he wore. “And what’s my rent got to do with 
you ? ’T all event, if I am a bit behoindhand in my rent, moy far- 
der was never locked up for six months.” 

“ Say for smuggling, Tommy, say for smuggling, or them parties 
as is a-listening ’ll think the ould man did something wrong,” said 
Jacob. 

Helga took me by the arm. 

“ Oh, Hugh, silence, them ! — they will come to blows.” 

“No, no,” said I, quickly, in a low voice. “I know this type of 
men. There must be much more shouting than this before they 
double up their fists.” 

Still, it was a stupid passage of temper, fit only to be quickly 
ended. 

10 


146 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Come, Abraham,” I cried, waiting till he had finished roaring 
out some further offensive question to Thomas, “ let us get sail on 
the boat and make an end of this. The trial of temper should be 
mine, not yours. Luck seems against the lady and me; and let me 
beg of you, as a good fellow and an English seaman, not to frighten 
Miss Nielsen.” 

“What does Tommy want to sarce me for?” said he, still breath- 
ing defiance at his mate out of his large nostrils and blood -red 
visage. 

“ What’s my rent got to do with you ?” shouted the other. 

“ And what’s moy father got to do with you ?” bawled Abraham. 

“ I say, Jacob,” I cried, “ for God’s sake let’s tail on to the hal- 
yards and start afresh. There’s no good in all this !” 

“ Come along, Abey, come along, Tommy !” bawled Jacob. “Droy 
up, mates! More’n enough’s been said;” and with that he laid hold 
of the halyards, and, without another word, Abraham and Thomas 
seized the rope too, and the sail was mast-headed. 

Abraham went to the tiller, the other two went to work to get 
breakfast, and now, in a silence that was not a little refreshing after 
the coarse, hoarse clamor of the quarrel, the lugger buzzed onward 
afresh. 

“ We shall be more fortunate next time,” said Helga, looking 
wistfully at me ; and well I knew there was no want of worry in my 
face ; for now there was peace in the boat the infamous cold-blooded 
indifference of the rogues we had just passed made me feel half 
mad. 

“ We might have been starving,” said I ; “ we might have been 
perishing for the want of a drink of water, and still the ruffians 
would have treated us so.” 

“ It is but waiting a little longer, Hugh,” said Helga, softly. 

“ Aye, but how much longer, Helga ?” said I. “ Must we wait for 
Cape Town, or perhaps Australia ?” 

“ Mr. Tregarthen, don’t let imagination run away with ye,” ex- 
claimed Abraham, in a voice of composure that was not a little as- 
tonishing after his recent outbreak ; though, having a tolerably inti- 
mate knowledge of the longshore character, and being very well 
aware that the words these fellows hurl at one another mean very 
little, and commonly end in nothing — unless the men are drunk — I 
was not very greatly surprised by the change in our friend. “ There’s 
nothen’ that upsets the moind quicker than imagination. I’ll gi’ ye 
a yarn. There’s an old chap, of the name of Billy Buttress, as crawls 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


147 


about our beach. A little grandson o’ his took the glasses out o’ his 
spectacles by way o’ amusing hisself. When old Billy puts ’em on 
to read with he sings out, ‘ God bless me, Oi’m gone bloind !’ and 
trembling, and all of a clam, as the saying is, he outs with his hand- 
kerchief to woipe the glasses, thinking it might be dirt as hindered 
him from seeing, and then he cries out, ‘ Lor’ now, if I ain’t lost my 
feeling !’ He wasn’t to be comforted till they sent for a pint o’ ale 
and showed him that his glasses had been took out. That’s imagi- 
nation, master. Don’t you be afeered. We’ll be setting ye aboard a 
homeward-bounder afore long.” 

By the time the fellows had got breakfast, the hull of the bark 
astern was out of sight ; nothing showed of her but a little hovering 
glance of canvas, and the sea-line swept from her to ahead of us in 
a bare, unbroken girdle. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

A SAILOR’S DEATH. 

The day slipped away. There were no more disputes; Thomas 
went to lie down, and, when Jacob took the tiller, Abraham pulled a 
little book out of his locker and read it, with his lips moving, hold- 
ing it out at arm’s-length, as though it were a daguerrotype that was 
only discernible in a certain light. I asked him the name of the 
book. 

“ The Boible,” said he. “ It’s the Sabbath, master, and I always 
read a chapter of this here book on Sundays.” 

Helga started. “ It is Sunday, indeed !” she exclaimed. “ I had 
forgotten it. How swiftly do the days come round ! It was a week 
last night since we left the bay, and this day week my father was 
alive — my dear father was alive !” 

She opened the parcel and took out the little Bible that had be- 
longed to her mother. I had supposed it was in Danish, but on my 
taking it from her I found it an English Bible. But then I recol- 
lected that her mother had been English. I asked her to read aloud 
to me, and she did so, pronouncing every word in a clear, sweet voice. 
I recollect it was a chapter out of the New Testament, and while 
she read Abraham put down his book to listen, and Jacob leaned for- 
ward from the tiller with a straining ear. 


148 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


In this fashion the time passed. 

I went to my miserable bed of spare sail under the overhanging 
deck shortly after nine o’clock that night. This unsheltered open- 
ing was truly a cold, windy, miserable bedroom for a man who could 
not in any way claim that he was used to hardship. Indeed, the 
wretchedness of the accommodation was as much a cause as any other 
condition of our situation of my wild, headlong impatience to get 
away from the lugger and sail for home in a ship that would find 
me shelter and a bed and room to move in, and those bare conven- 
iences of life which were lacking aboard the Early Morn. 

Well, as I have said, shortly after nine o’clock on that Sunday I 
bid good-night to Abraham, who was steering the vessel, and entered 
my sleeping abode, where Jacob was lying rolled up in a blanket, 
snoring heavily. It was then a dark night, but the wind was scant, 
and the water smooth, and but little motion of swell in it. I had 
looked for a star, but there was none to be seen, and then I had 
looked for a ship’s light, but the dusk stood like a wall of blackness 
within a musket-shot of the lugger’s sides — for that was about as far 
as one could see the dim crawling of the foam to windward and its 
receding glimmer on the other hand — and there was not the faintest 
point of green or red or white anywhere visible. 

I lay awake for some time ; sleep could make but little head-way 
against the battery of snorts and gasps which the Deal boatman, 
lying close beside me, opposed to it. My mind also was uncom- 
monly active with worry and anxiety. I was dwelling constantly 
upon my mother, recalling her as I had last seen her by the glow of 
the fire in her little parlor when I gave her that last kiss and ran 
out of the house. It is eight days ago, thought I; and it seemed 
incredible that the time should have thus fled. Then I thought of 
Helga, the anguish of heart the poor girl had suffered, her heroic 
acceptance of her fate, her simple piety, her friendlessness, and her 
future. 

In this way was my mind occupied when I fell asleep, and I after- 
wards knew that I must have laid for about an hour wrapped in the 
heavy slumber that comes to a weary man at sea. 

I was awakened by a sound of the crashing and splintering of 
wood. This was instantly succeeded by a loud and fearful cry, ac- 
companied by the noise of a heavy splash, immediately followed by 
hoarse shouts. One of the voices I believed was Abraham’s, but the 
blending of the distressed and terrified bawlings rendered them con- 
founding and scarcely distinguishable. It was pitch-dark where I 


Jjisten P shouted Jacob, and lie sgnt his voj.ce h\ q, bv r Jl-li/pe fqqr info the tyaclfness astei'n : 1 Tom.-m.ee P ” 



















































































































THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


149 


lay. I got on to my knees to crawl out ; but some spare sail that 
Abraham had contrived as a shelter for me had slipped from its posi- 
tion and obstructed me, and I lay upon my knees wrestling for a 
few minutes before I could free myself. In this time my belief was 
that the lugger had been in collision with some black shadow of 
ship invisible to the helmsman in the darkness, and that she might 
be now, even while I kneeled wrestling with the sail, going down 
under us, with Helga, perhaps, still in the forepeak. This caused 
me to struggle furiously, and, presently, I got clear of the blinding 
and hugging folds of the canvas; but I was almost spent with fear 
and exertion. 

Some one continued to shout, and by the character of his cries I 
gathered that he was hailing a vessel close to. It was blowing a 
sharp squall of wind, and raining furiously. The darkness was that 
of the inside of a mine, and all that I could see was the figure of a 
boatman leaning over the side and holding the lantern (that was kept 
burning all night) on a level with the gunwale while he shouted, 
and then listened, and then shouted again. 

“ For God’s sake, men, tell me what has happened !” I cried. 

The voice of Jacob, though I could not see him, answered, in a 
tone I shall never forget for the misery and consternation of it: 
“ The foremast’s carried away and knocked poor old Tommy over- 
board. He’s drownded ! he’s drownded! He don’t make no answer. 
His painted clothes and boots have took him down as if he was a 
dipsey lead.” 

“ Can he swim ?” I cried. 

“ No, sir, no !” 

I sprang to where Abraham overhung the rail. 

“Will he be lying fouled by the gear over the side, do you 
think ?” I cried to the man. 

“ No, sir,” answered Abraham ; “ he drifted clear. He sung out 
once as he went astern. My God ! what a thing to happen ! Can’t 
launch the punt with the lugger a wreck,” he added, talking as 
though he thought aloud in his misery. “We’d stand to lose the 
lugger if we launched the punt.” 

“ Listen !” shouted Jacob, and he sent his voice in a bull-like roar 
into the blackness astern : “ Tom-mee !” 

There was nothing to be heard but the shrilling of the sharp-edged 
. squall rushing athwart the boat that now lay beam on to it, and the 
slashing noise of the deluge of rain horizontally streaming, and the 
grinding of the wrecked gear alongside with frequent sharp slaps of 


150 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


the rising sea against the bends of the lugger, and the fierce snarling 
of melting heads of waters suddenly and savagely vexed and flashed 
into spray while curling. 

“ What is it ?” cried the voice of Helga in my ear. 

“ Ah, thank God, you are safe !” I cried, feeling for her hand and 
grasping it. “ A dreadful thing has happened. The lugger has 
been dismasted, and the fall of the spar has knocked the man Thomas 
overboard.” 

“ He may be swimming !” she exclaimed. 

“No! no! no!” growled Abraham, in a voice hoarse with grief. 

“ He’s gone — he’s gone ! We shall never see him again.” Then 
his note suddenly changed. “ Jacob, the raffle alongside must be 
got in at wonst ; let’s bear a hand afore the sea jumps aboard. Lady, 
will ye hold the loight? Mr. Tregarthen, we shall want you to 
help us.” 

“ Willingly !” I cried. 

I remembered at that moment that my oil-skin coat lay in the side 
of the boat close to where I stood. I stooped and felt it, and in a 
moment I had whipped it over Helga’s shoulders, for she was now 
holding the lantern, and I had her clear in my sight. It would 
be a godsend to her, I knew, in the wet that was now sluicing 
past us, and that must speedily have soaked her to the skin, clad as 
she was. 

For the next few minutes all was bustle and hoarse shouts. I see 
little Helga now, hanging over the side and swinging the lantern, 
that its light might touch the wreckage ; I see the crystals of rain 
flashing past the lantern and blinding the glass of it with wet; I feel 
again the rush of the fierce squall upon my face, making breathing a 
labor, while I grab hold of the canvas, and help the men to drag the 
great, sodden, heavy sail into the boat. We worked desperately, and, 
as I have said, in a few minutes we had got the whole of the sail 
out of the water ; but the mast was too heavy to handle in the black- 
ness, and it was left to float clear of us by the halyards till daylight 
should come. 

We were wet through, and chilled to the heart besides — I speak 
of myself, at least — not more by the sharp bite of that black, wet 
squall than by the horror occasioned by the sudden loss of a man, 
by the thought of one as familiar to the sight as hourly association 
could make him, who was just now living and talking — lying cold • 
and still, sinking fathoms deep into the heart of that dark, measure- 
less profound on whose surface the lugger — in all probability the 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


151 


tiniest ark at that moment afloat in the oceans she was attempting 
to traverse — was tumbling. 

“Haul aft the mizzen- sheet, Jacob!” said Abraham, in a voice 
hoarse indeed, but marked with depression also. “ Ye can secure 
the tiller, too. She must loie as she is till we can see what we’re 
about.” 

The man went aft with a lantern. He speedily executed Abra- 
ham’s orders; but by the aid of the dim lantern-light I could see 
him standing motionless in the stern-sheets, as though hearkening 
and straining his gaze. 

“ He’s, gone, Abraham !” he cried, suddenly, in a rough voice that 
trembled with emotion. “ There will be never no more to hear of 
Tommy Budd. Aye, gone dead — drownded forever!” I heard him 
mutter, as he picked up the lantern and came with heavy booted legs 
clambering over the thwarts to us. 

“ As God’s my loife, how sudden it were!” cried Abraham, mak- 
ing his hands meet in a sharp report in the passion of grief with 
which he clapped them. 

It was still raining hard, and the atmosphere was of a midnight 
blackness; but all the hardness of the squall was gone out of the 
wind, and it was now blowing a steady breeze, such as we should 
have been able to expose our whole lug-sail to could we have hoisted 
it. Jacob held the lantern to the mast, or rather to the fragment 
that remained of it. You must know that a Deal lugger’s mast is 
stepped in what is termed a “ tabernacle ’’—that is to say, a sort of 
box, which enables the crew to lower or set up their mast at will. 
This “ tabernacle,” with us, stood a little less than two feet above 
the forepeak deck, and the mast had been broken at some ten feet 
above it. It showed in very ugly, fang-like points. 

“ Two rotten masts for such a voyage as this !” cried Jacob, with 
a savage note in his voice. “ ’Tis old Thompson’s work. Would 
God he was in Tommy’s place ! S’elp me ! I’d give half the airn- 
ings of this voyage for the chance to drown him !” By which I 
might gather that he referred to the boat-builder who had supplied 
the masts. 

“ No use in standing in this drizzle, men,” said I. “ It’s a bad 
job, but there’s nothing to be done for the present, Abraham. 
There’s shelter to be got under this deck here. Have you another 
lantern ?” 

“ What for?” asked Abraham, in the voice of a man utterly broken 
down. 


152 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Why, to show,” said I, “ lest we should be run into. Here we 
are stationary, you know, and who’s to see us as we lie ?” 

“ And a blooming good job if we was run into !” returned Abra- 
ham. “ Blarst me if I couldn’t chuck moyself overboard.” 

“ Nonsense !” cried I, somewhat alarmed by his tone rather than 
by his words. “ Let us get under shelter! Here, Jacob, give me the 
light ! Now, Helga, crawl in first and show us the road. Abraham, 
in with you ! Jacob, take this lantern, will you, and get one of 
those jars of spirits you took off the raft, and a mug and some cold 
water ! Abraham will be the better for a dram, and so will you.” 

The jar was procured, and each man took a hearty drink. I, too, 
found comfort in a dram, but I could not induce Helga to put the 
mug to her lips. The four of us crouched under the overhanging 
deck — there was no height and, indeed, no breadth for an easier 
posture. We set the lantern in our midst*— I had no more to say 
about showing the light — and in this dim irradiation we gazed at 
one another. Abraham’s countenance looked of a ghostly white. 
Jacob, with mournful gestures, filled a pipe, and his melancholy vis- 
age resembled some grotesque face beheld in a dream as he opened 
the lantern and thrust his nose, with a large rain - drop hanging at 
the end of it, close to the flame to light the tobacco. 

“ To think that I should have had a row with him only this marn- 
ing !” growled Abraham, hugging his knees. “ What roight had I 
to go and sarce him about his rent ? Will any man tell me,” said 
he, slowly looking round, “that poor old Tommy’s heart warn’tdn 
the roight place? I hope not, I hope not— I couldn’t abear to hear 
it said. He was a man as had had to struggle hard for his bread, like 
others along of us, and disappointment and want and marriage had 
tarned his blood hacid. I’ve known him to pass three days without 
biting a crust. The wery bed on which he lay was took from him. 
Yet he bore up, and without th’ help o’ drink, and I says that to the 
pore chap’s credit.” 

He paused. 

“At bottom,” exclaimed Jacob, sucking hard at his inch of sooty 
clay, “Tommy was a man. He once saved my loife. You remem- 
ber, Abey, that job I had along with him when we was atowing down 
on the quarter of a big, light Spaniard ?” 

“ I remember, I remember,” grunted Abraham. 

“The boat sheered,” continued Jacob, addressing me, “and got 
agin the steamer’s screw, and the stroke of the blade cut the boat 
roight in halves. They chucked us a loife-buoy. Poor old Tommy 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


153 


got hold of it and heads for me, who were drowning some fathoms 
off. He clutched me by the hair just in toime, and held me till we 
was picked up. And now he's gone dead, and we shall never see 
him no more.” 

“Tommy Budd,” exclaimed Abraham, “was that sort of man that 
he never took a pint himself without asking a chap to have a glass 
tew, if so be as he had the valley of it on him. There was no 
smarter man fore and aft the beach in steering a galley-punt. There 
was scarce a regatta but what he was fust.” 

“ He was a upright man,” said Jacob, observing that Abraham had 
paused ; “ and never more upright than when he warn’t sober, which 
proves how true his instincts was. When his darter got married to 
young Darkey Dick, as Tommy didn’t think a suitable match, he 
walks into the room of the public-house where the company was 
dancing and enjoying themselves, kicked the whole blooming party 
out into the road, then sits down, and calls for a glass himself. Of 
course he’d had a drop too much. But the drink only improved his 
nat’ral disloike of the wedding. Pore Tommy ! Abey, pass along 
that jar !” 

In this fashion these plain, simple-hearted souls of boatmen con- 
tinued for some time, with now and again an interlude in the direc- 
tion of the spirit-jar, to bewail the loss of their unhappy shipmate. 
Our situation, however, was of a sort that would not suffer the shock 
caused by the man Thomas’s death to be very lasting. Here we 
were, in what was little better than an open boat of eighteen tons, 
lying dismasted and entirely helpless amid the solitude of a black 
midnight in the Atlantic Ocean, with nothing but an already wounded 
mast to depend upon when daybreak should come to enable us to set 
it up, and the lugger’s slender crew less by one able hand ! 

It was still a thick and drizzling night, with a plentiful sobbing of 
water alongside; but the Early Morn , under her little mizzen and 
with her bows almost head to sea, rose and fell quietly. By this 
time the men had pretty well exhausted their lamentations over 
Thomas. I therefore ventured to change the subject. 

“ Now there are but two of you,” said I, “ I suppose you’ll up 
with your mast to-morrow morning and make for home?” 

“ No fear,” answered Abraham, speaking with briskness out of the 
drams he had swallowed. “ We’re agoing to Australey, and if so be 
as another of us ain’t taken we’ll get there.” 

“ But, surely, you’ll not continue this voyage with the outfit you 
now have ?” said I. 


154 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Well,” said he, “ we shall have to ‘ fish ’ the mast that’s sprung 
and try and make it sarve till we falls in with a wessel as ’ll give 
us a sound spar to take the mast’s place. Anyhow, we shall keep 
all on.” 

“Aye, we shall keep all on,” said Jacob; “no use coming all 
this way to tarn back again. Why, Gor’ bless me, what ’ud be said 
of us ?” 

“ But, surely,” said Helga, “ two of you’ll not be able to manage 
this big boat?” 

“ Lord love ’ee, yes, lady,” cried Abraham. “ Mind ye, if we was 
out a-pleasuring I should want to get home ; but there’s money 
to take up at the end of this ramble, and Jacob and me means to 
airn it.” 

Thus speaking, he crawled out to have a look at the weather, and 
was, a moment later, followed by Jacob, and presently I could hear 
them both earnestly consulting on what was to be done when the 
morning came, and how they were to 'manage afterwards, now that 
Thomas was gone. 

The light of the lantern lay upon Helga’s face as she sat close be- 
side me on the spare sail that had formed my rough couch. 

“ What further experiences are we to pass through ?” said I. 

“ Little you guessed what was before you when you came off to 
us in the life-boat, Hugh !” said she, gazing gently at me with eyes 
which seemed black in the dull light. 

“ These two boatmen,” said I, “ are very good fellows, but there 
is a pig-headedness about them that does not improve our distress. 
Their resolution to proceed might appear as a wonderful stroke of 
courage to a landsman’s mind, but to a sailor it could signify nothing 
more than the rankest foolhardiness. A plague upon their heroism ! 
A little timidity would mean common-sense, and then to-morrow 
morning we should be heading for home. But I fear you are wet 
through, Helga.” 

“ No ; your oil-skin has kept me dry,” she answered. 

“ No need for you to stay here,” said I. “ Why not return to the 
forepeak and finish out the night?” 

“ I would rather remain with you, Hugh.” 

“ Aye, Helga, but you must spare no pains to fortify yourself with 
rest and food. God knows what the future may be holding for us 
— how heavily the pair of us may yet be tried. These experiences, 
so far, may prove but a few links of a chain whose end is still a long 
way off.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


155 


She put her hand on the back of mine, and tenderly stroked it. 

“ Hugh,” said she, “ remember our plain friend Abraham’s advice: 
Do not let imagination run away with you. The spirit that brought 
you to the side of the Anine in the black and dreadful night is still 
your own. Cheer up ! All will be well with you yet. What makes 
me say this ? I cannot tell, if it be not the conviction that God will 
not leave unwatclied one whose trials have been brought about by an 
act of noble courage and of beautiful resolution.” 

She continued to caress my hand as she spoke — an unconscious 
gesture in her, as I perceived — maybe it was a habit of her affection- 
ate heart, and I could figure her thus caressing her father’s hand, or 
the hand of a dear friend. Her soft eyes were upon my face as she 
addressed me, and there was light enough to enable me to distinguish 
a little encouraging smile full of sweetness upon her lips. 

If ever strength was to be given to a man in a time of bitter anx- 
iety and peril, the inspiration of spirit must surely come from such 
a little woman as this. I felt the influence of her manner and of 
her presence. 

“You have a fine spirit, Helga,” said I. “Your name should be 
Nelson instead of Nielsen. The blood of nothing short of the great- 
est of English captains should be in your veins.” 

She laughed softly and answered, “ No, no ! I am a Dane first. 
Let me be an English girl next.” 

Well, I again endeavored to persuade her to withdraw to her 
bunk, but she begged hard to remain with me, and so for a long 
while we continued to sit and talk. Her speaking of herself as 
a Dane first and an Englishwoman afterwards started her on the 
subject of her borne and childhood, and once again she talked of 
Kolding and of her mother, and of the time she had spent in Lon- 
don, and of an English school she had been put to. I could over- 
hear the rumbling of the two fellows’ voices outside. By-and-by I 
crawled out and found the rain had ceased ; but it was pitch-dark 
and blowing a cold wind. Jacob had lighted the fire in the stove. 
His figure showed in the ruddy glare as he squatted toasting his 
hands. I returned to Helga, and presently Abraham arrived to ask 
us if we would have a drop of hot coffee. This was a real luxury at 
such a time. We gratefully took a mugful, and with the help of it 
made a midnight meal off a biscuit and a little tinned meat. 

How we scraped through those long, dark, wet hours I will not 
pretend to describe. Towards the morning Helga fell asleep by my 
side on the sail upon which we were crouching, but for my part I 


156 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


could get no rest, nor, indeed, did I strive or wish for it. One thing 
coining on top of another had rendered me unusually nervous, and 
all the while I was thinking that our next experience might be the 
feeling some great shearing stem of a sailing-ship or steamer striking 
into the lugger and drowning the lot of us before we could well real- 
ize what had happened. I was only easy in my mind when the boat- 
man carried the lantern out from under the overhanging deck for 
some purpose or other. 

It came at last, however, to my being able no longer to conceal 
my apprehensions, and then, after some talk and a bit of hearty 
“ pooh-poohing ” on the part of Abraham, he consented to secure 
the light to the stump of the mast. 

This might have been at about half-past three o’clock in the 
morning, when the night was blacker than it had been at any pre- 
vious hour ; and then a very strange thing followed. I had returned 
to my shelter, and was sitting lost in thought, for Helga was now 
sleeping. The two boatmen were in the open, but what they were 
about I could not tell you. I was sunk deep in gloomy thought, as 
I have said, when, on a sudden, I heard a sound of loud bawling. I 
went out as quickly as my knees would carry me, and the first thing 
I saw was the green light of a ship glimmering faintly as a glow- 
worm out in the darkness abeam. I knew her to be a sailing-ship, 
for she showed no mast-head light, but there was not the dimmest 
outline to be seen of her. Her canvas threw no pallor upon the mid- 
night wall of atmosphere. But for that fluctuating green light show- 
ing so illusively that one needed to look a little on one side of it to 
catch it, the ocean would have been as bare as the heavens, so far as 
the sight went. One after the other the two boatmen continued to 
shout “ Ship ahoy !” in hearty, roaring voices, which they sent flying 
through the arching of their hands ; but the light went sliding on, 
and in a few minutes the screen in which it was hung eclipsed it, and 
it was all blackness again, look where one would. 

There was nothing to be said about this to the men. I crept back 
to Helga, who had been awakened by the hoarse shouts. 

“ Some sailing-vessel has passed us,” said I, in answer to her in- 
quiry, “ as we may know by the green light ; but how near or far I 
cannot tell. Yet it is more likely than not, Helga, that but for my 
begging Abraham to keep a light showing that same ship might 
have run us down.” 

We conversed awhile about the vessel and our chances, and then 
her voice grew languid again with drowsiness, and she fell asleep. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


157 


Some while before dawn the rain ceased, the sky brightened, and 
here and there a star showed. I had been out overhanging the gun- 
wale with Abraham, and listening to him as he talked about his mate 
Thomas, and how the children were to manage now that the poor 
fellow was taken, when the gray of the dawn rose floating into the 
sky off the black rim of the sea. 

In a short time the daylight was abroad, with the pink of the com- 
ing sun swiftly growing in glory among the clouds in the east. Ja- 
cob sat sleeping in the bottom of the boat, squatting Lascar fashion 
— a huddle of coat and angular knees and bowed head. I got upon 
a thwart and sent a long thirsty look round. 

“ By Heaven, Abraham,” I cried, “ nothing in sight, as I live to say 
it ! What, in the name of hope, has come to the sea ?” 

“ We’re agoing to have a fine day, I’m thankful to say,” he an- 
swered, turning up his eyes. “ But, Lord ! what a wreck the lugger 
looks !” 

The poor fellow was as haggard as though he had risen from a 
sick-bed, and this sudden gauntness or elongation of countenance was 
not a little heightened by a small powdering of the crystals of salt 
lying white under the hollow of each eye where the brine that had 
been swept up by the squall had lodged and dried. 

“ Hi, Jacob!” he cried; “rouse up, matey ! Day’s broke, and 
there’s work to be done.” 

Jacob staggered to his feet with many contortions and grimaces. 

“ Chock-a-block with rheumatics,” he growled ; “ that’s how the 
sea sarves a man. They said it ’ud get warmer the furder we drawed 
down this way ; but if this be what they calls warm , give me the 
scissors and thumb-screws of a Jan wary gale in the Jarman Ocean in 
preference to it.” He gazed slowly around him, and fixed his eyes 
on the stump of the mast. “ Afore we begin, Abraham,” said he, 
“I must have a drop of hot corffee.” 

“ Right,” answered the other ; “ a quarter of an hour isn’t going 
to make any difference.” 

A fire was kindled, a kettle of water boiled, and, Helga now arriv- 
ing, the four of us sat, every one with a mug of the comforting, 
steaming beverage in his hand, while the two boatmen settled the 
procedure of strengthening the wounded spar by “ fishing it,” as it 
is termed, and of making sail afresh. 


158 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART; 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE END OF THE EARLY MORN. 

The first business of the men was to get the broken mast out of 
the water. Helga helped, and worked with as much dexterity as 
though she had been bred to the calling of the Deal waterman. The 
mast in breaking had been shortened by ten feet, and was therefore 
hardly as useful a spar to step as the bowsprit. It was laid along the 
thwarts in the side, and we went to work to strengthen the mast 
that had been sprung in the Channel by laying pieces of wood over 
the fractured part, and securely binding them by turn upon turn of 
rope. This, at sea, they call “ fishing a spar.” Jacob shook his head as 
he looked at the mast when we had made an end of tthe repairs, but 
said nothing. When the mast was stepped we hoisted the sail with 
a reef in it to ease the strain. Abraham went to the tiller, the boat’s 
head was put to a south-west course, and once again the little fabric 
was pushing through it, rolling in a long-drawn way upon a sudden 
swell that had risen while we worked, with a frequent little vicious 
shake of white waters off her bow, as though the combing of the 
small seas irritated her. 

The wind was about east, of a November coldness, and it blew 
somewhat lightly till a little before ten o’clock in the morning, when 
it came along freshening in a gust which heeled the boat sharply, and 
brought a wild, anxious look into Abraham’s eyes as he gazed at the 
mast. The horizon slightly thickened to some film of mist which 
overlay the windward junction of heaven and water, and the sky then 
took a windy face, with dim breaks of blue between long streaks of 
hard vapor, under which there nimbly sailed, here and there, a wreath 
of light-yellow scud. The sea rapidly became sloppy — an uncomfort- 
able tumble of billows occasioned by the lateral run of the swell — 
and the boat’s gait grew so staggering, such a sense of internal dislo- 
cation was induced by her brisk, jerky wobbling — now to windward, 
now to leeward, now by the stern, now by the head, then all the mo- 
tions happening together, as it were, followed by a sickly, leaning 
slide down some slope of rounded water — that for the first time in 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


159 


my life I felt positively sea-sick, and was not a little thankful for the 
relief I obtained from a nip of poor Captain Nielsen’s brandy out of 
one of the few jars which had been taken from the raft, and which 
still remained full. 

Some while before noon it was blowing a fresh breeze, with a some- 
what steadier sea ; but the rolling and plunging of the lugger con- 
tinued sharp and exceedingly uncomfortable. To still further help 
the mast — Abraham having gone into the forepeak to get a little 
sleep — Helga and I, at the request of Jacob, who was steering, tied 
a second reef in the sail ; though, had the spar been sound, the lug- 
ger would have easily borne the whole of her canvas. 

“ If that mast goes, what is to be done ?” said I to Jacob. 

“ Whoy,” he answered, “ we shall have to make shift with the re- 
mains of the mast that went overboard last night.” 

“ But what sail will you be able to hoist on that shortened height ?” 

“ Enough to keep us slowly blowing along,” he answered, “ till we 
falls in with a wessel as will help us to the sort o’ spar as ’ll sarve.” 

“ Considering the barrenness of the sea we have been sailing 
through,” said I, “ the lookout seems a poor one, if we’re to depend 
upon passing assistance.” 

“ Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, fixing his eyes upon my face, “ I’m an 
older man nor you, and therefore I takes the liberty of telling ye this: 
that neither ashore nor at sea do things fall out in the fashion as is 
hanticipated. That’s what the Hitalian organ-grinder discovered. He 
con-ceived that if he could get hold of a big monkey he’d do a good 
trade; so he buys the biggest he could meet with — a chap pretty 
nigh as big as himself. What happened ? When them parties was 
met with a week arterwards, it was the monkey that was a-turning 
the handle, while the horgan-grinder was doing the dancing.” 

“ The public wouldn’t know the difference,” said Helga. 

“ True for you, lady,” answered Jacob, with an approving nod and 
a smile of admiration. “ But Mr. Tregarthen here ’ll find out that 
I’ in speaking the Lard’s truth when I says that human hanticipation 
always works out contrariwise.” 

“ I heartily hope it may do so in our case !” I exclaimed, vexed 
by the irrationality, as it seemed to me, of this homely boatman’s 
philosophic views. 

“ About toime for Abraham to take soights, ain’t it ?” said he. 

I went to the hatch and called to Abraham, who in a few minutes 
arrived, and, with sleepy eyes, fell to groping after the sun with 
his old quadrant. While he was thus occupied, Helga touched me 


160 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


lightly on the shoulder and pointed astern. I peered an instant, 
and then said, 

“ I see it ! A sail ! — at the wrong end of the sea again, of course ! 
Another Tliermopylce , maybe, to thunder past us with no further 
recognition of our wants than a wagging head over the rail, with a 
finger at its nose.” 

“ It’s height bells !” cried Abraham ; and he sat down to his rough 
calculations. 

Jacob looked soberly over his shoulder at the distant tiny space 
of white canvas. 

“ If there’s business to be done with her,” said he, “ we must steer 
to keep her head right at our starn. What course ’ll she be taking?” 

“ She appears to be coming directly at us,” answered Helga. 

“Why not lower your sail, heave the lugger to, and fly a distress 
signal ?” said I. 

I had scarcely uttered the words when the boat violently jumped 
a sea ; a crash followed, and the next instant the sail, with half of the 
fished mast, was overboard, with the lugger rapidly swinging, head 
to sea, to the drag of the wreckage. 

I was not a little startled by the sudden cracking of the mast, that 
was like the report of a gun, and the splash of the sail overboard, and 
the rapid slewing of the boat. 

Helga quietly said in my ear, “ Nothing better could have hap- 
pened, Hugh. We are now indeed a wreck for that ship astern to 
sight, and she is sure to speak us.” 

Abraham flung down his log-book with a sudden roaring out of I 
know not what longshore profanities, and Jacob, letting go the helm, 
went scrambling forward over the thwarts, heaping sea-blessings, as 
he sprawled, upon the eyes and limbs of the boat-builder who had 
supplied the lugger with spars. The three of us went to work, and 
Helga helped us as best she could, to get the sail in ; but the sea that 
was now running was large compared to what it had been during 
the night, and the task was extraordinarily laborious and distressful. 
Indeed, how long it took us to drag that great lug-sail full of water 
over the rail was to be told by the ship astern, for when I had lei- 
sure to look for her I found her risen to her hull, and coming along, 
as it seemed to me, dead for us, heeling sharply away from the fresh 
wind, but rolling heavily, too, on the swell, and pitching with the 
regularity of a swing in motion. 

Helga and I threw ourselves upon a thwart to take breath, The 
boatmen stood looking at the approaching vessel. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


161 


“ She’ll not miss seeing us, anyway,” said Abraham. 

“ I’m for letting the lugger loie as she is,” exclaimed Jacob ; “ they’ll 
see the mess we’re in, and back their taws’l.” 

“You will signal to her, I hope?” said I. 

“ Aye,” answered Abraham ; “ we’ll gi’ ’em a flourish of the Jack 
presently, though there’ll be little need, for if our condition ain’t go- 
ing to stop ’em there’s nothen in a color to do it.” 

• “Abraham,” said I, “you and Jacob will not, I am sure, think us 
ungrateful if I say that I have made up my mind — and I am sure 
Miss Nielsen will agree — that I have made up my mind, Abraham, 
to leave your lugger for that ship, outward-bound as I can see she is, 
if she will receive us.” 

“ Well, sir,” answered Abraham, mildly, “you and the lady are your 
own masters, and, of course, you’ll do as you please.” 

“ It is no longer right,” I continued, “ that we should go on in this 
fashion, eating you out of your little floating house and home ; nor 
is it reasonable that we should keep you deprived of the comfort of 
your forepeak. We owe you our lives, and, God knows, we are grate- 
ful ! But our gratitude must not take the form of compelling you to 
go on maintaining us.” 

Abraham took a slow look at the ship. 

“Well, sir,” said he, “down to this hour the odds have been so 
heavy agin your exchanging this craft for a homeward-bounder that 
I really haven’t the heart to recommend ye to wait a little longer. 
It’s but an oncomfortable life for the likes of you and the lady — she 
having to loie in a little bit of a coal-black room, forrads, as may be 
all very good for us men, but werry bad and hard for her ; and you 
having to tarn in under that there opening, into which there’s no 
vartue in sail-cloth to keep the draughts from blowing. I dorn’t 
doubt ye’ll be happier aboard a craft where you’ll have room to 
stretch your legs in, a proper table to sit down to for your meals, and 
a cabin where you’ll loie snug. ’Sides, tain’t, after all, as if she wasn’t 
agoing to give ye the same chances of getting home as the Airly 
Mam dew. Only hope she’ll receive ye.” 

“ Bound to it,” rumbled Jacob, “ if so be as her cap’n ’s a maw.” 

I turned to Helga. 

“Do I decide wisely?” 

“ Yes, Hugh,” she answered. “ I hate to think of your lying in 
that cold space there throughout the nights. The two poor fellows,” 
she added, softly, “are generous, kind, large-hearted men, and I shrink 
from the thought of the mad adventure they have engaged in. But,” 
11 


162 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


said she, with a little smile and a faint touch of color in her cheeks, 
as though she spoke reluctantly, “ the Early Morn is very uncom- 
fortable, Hugh.” 

“ All we have now to pray for is that the captain of that vessel 
will take us on board,” said I, fixing my eyes on the ship, that was 
yet too distant for the naked sight to make anything of. “ I sup- 
pose, Abraham,” I spoke out, turning to the man, “ that you will re- 
quest them to give you a boom for a spare mast?” 

“ Vy, ask yourself the question, sir,” he answered. 

“ But suppose they have no spare booms, and are unable to accom- 
modate you ?” 

“Then,” said he, “we must up with that there stick,” pointing 
with his. square thumb to the mast that had carried away on the pre- 
vious night, “ and blow along till we meets with something that will 
accommodate us.” 

“But, honestly, men — are you in earnest in your resolution to 
pursue this voyage to Australia? You two — the crew now half the 
working strength you started with — a big boat of eighteen tons to 
handle, and — ” I was on the point of referring to the slenderness 
of his skill as a navigator, but, happily, snapped my lips in time to 
silence the words. 

Abraham eyed me a moment, then gave me a huge, emphatic nod, 
and, without remark, turned his back upon me in longshore fashion 
and leisurely looked around the ocean line. 

“ Men,” said I, “ that ship may take us aboard, and in the bustle 
I may miss the chance of saying what is in my mind. My name is 
Hugh Tregarthen, as you know, and I live at Tintrenale, which you 
have likewise heard me say. I came away from home in a hurry to 
get alongside the ship that this brave girl’s father commanded ; and 
as I was then so am I now — without a single article of value upon 
me worthy of your acceptance; for as to my watch, it was my fa- 
ther’s, and I must keep it. But if it should please God, men, to 
bring us all safely to England again, then, no matter when you two 
may return, whether in twelve months hence or twelve years hence, 
you will find set apart for you, at the little bank in Tintrenale, a sum 
of fifty pounds, which you will take as signifying twenty-five pounds 
from Miss Helga Nielsen and twenty-five pounds from me.” 

“We thank you koindly, sir,” said Jacob. 

“ Let us get home, first,” said Abraham ; “ y$t I thank ye koind- 
ly, tew, Mr. Tregarthen,” he added, rounding upon me again and ex- 
tending his rough hand. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


163 


I grasped and held it with eyes suffused by the emotion of grati- 
tude which possessed me; then Jacob shook hands with me, and then 
the poor fellows shook hands with Helga, whose breath I could hear 
battling with a sob in her throat as she thanked them for her life 
and for their goodness to her. 

But every minute was bringing the ship closer, and now I could 
think of nothing else. Would she back her top-sail and come to a 
stand ? Would she at any moment shift her helm and give us a wide 
berth? Would she, if she came to a halt, receive Helga and me? 
These were considerations to excite a passion of anxiety in me. 
Helga’s eyes, with a clear blue gleam in them, were fixed upon the 
oncoming vessel ; but the agitation, the hurry of emotions in her lit- 
tle heart, showed in the trembling of her nostrils and the contraction 
of her white brow, where a few threads of her pale -gold hair were 
blowing. 

Jacob pulled the Jack out of the locker and attached it to the 
long staff or pole, and fell to waving it as before when the Ham- 
burger hove into view. The ship came along slowly but without de- 
viating by a hair’s breadth from her course, that was on a straight 
line with the lugger. She was still dim in the blue, windy air, but 
determinable to a certain extent, and now with the naked vision I 
could distinguish her as a bark or ship of about the size of the 
Anine , her hull black, and a row of painted ports running along 
either side. She sat somewhat high upon the water, as though she 
were half empty or her cargo very light goods; but she was neat 
aloft — different, indeed, from the Hamburger. Her royals were 
stowed in streaks of snow upon their yards, but the rest of her can- 
vas was spread, and it showed in soft, fair bosoms of white, and the 
cloth carried, indeed, an almost yacht-like brilliance as they steadily 
swung against the steely -gray of the atmosphere of the horizon. 
The ship pitched somewhat heavily as she came, and the foam rose 
in milky clouds to the hawse-pipes with the regular alternation of 
the lifting out of the round, wet, black bows, and a flash of sunshine 
off the streaming timbers. From time to time Jacob flourished his flag- 
staff, all of us, meanwhile, waiting and watching in silence. Presently 
Abraham put his little telescope to his eye, and, after a pause, said, 

“ She means to heave-to.” 

“ How can you tell ?” I cried. 

“ I can see some figures a-standing by the weather main-braces,” 
said he; “and every now and again there’s a chap aft, bending his 
body over the rail to have a look at us.” 


164 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


His longshore observation proved correct. Indeed, your Deal 
boatman can interpret the intentions of a ship as you are able to 
read the passions in the human face. When she was within a few 
of her own lengths of us, the main-sail having previously been hauled 
up, the yards on the main-mast were swung and the vessel’s way ar- 
rested. Her impulse, which appeared to have been very nicely cal- 
culated, brought her surging, foaming, and rolling to almost abreast 
of us, within reach of the fling of a line before she came to a dead 
stand. I instantly took notice of a crowd of chocolate-visaged men 
standing on the forecastle staring at us, with a white man on the cat- 
head, and a man aft on the poop, with a white wide-awake and long 
yellow whiskers. 

“ Bark ahoy !” bawled Abraham, for the vessel proved to be of 
that rig, though it was not to have been told by us as she approach- 
ed head on. 

“ Holloa !” shouted the man in the white wide-awake. 

“ For God’s sake, sir,” shouted Abraham, “heave us a line that we 
may haul alongside ! We’re in great distress, and there’s a couple 
of parties here as wants to get aboard ye.” 

“ Heave them a line !” shouted the fellow aft, sending his voice to 
the forecastle. 

“ Look out for it !” bawled the white man on the heel of the cat- 
head within the rail. 

A line lay ready, as though our want had been foreseen ; with 
sailorly celerity the white man gathered it into fakes, and in a few 
moments the coils were flying through the air. Jacob caught the 
rope with the unerring clutch of a boatman, and the three of us, 
stretching our backs at it, swung the lugger to the vessel’s quarter. 

“What is it you want?” cried the long- whiskered man, looking 
down at us over the rail. 

“We’ll come aboard and tell you, sir,” answered Abraham. “Ja- 
cob, you mind the lugger ! Now, Mr. Tregarthen, watch your chance 
and jump into them channels (meaning the mizzen-chains), and I’ll 
stand by to help the lady up to your hands. Ye’ll want narve, miss ; 
can ye do it?” 

Helga smiled as she answered, “ I will go first, if you like.” 

I jumped on to a thwart, planting one foot on the gunwale in 
readiness. The rolling of the two craft — complicated, so to speak, 
by the swift jumps of the lugger as compared with the slow stoops 
of the bark — made the task of boarding ticklish even to me, who had 
had some experience of gaining the decks of ships in heavy weather. 


He seized the brim of his hat , and said , l l suppose you are the two distressed parties the sailor 

called out about 









THE ROMANCE OR A MONTH. 


165 


I waited. Up swung the boat, and over came the leaning side of the 
bark ; then I sprang, and successfully, and, instantly turning, waited 
to catch hold of Helga. 

Abraham took her under the arms as though to lift her towards 
me when the opportunity came. 

“ I can manage alone — I shall be safer alone,” she exclaimed, giv- 
ing him a smile and then setting her lips. 

She did as I had done — stood on a thwart, securely planting one 
foot on the gunwale; and even in such a moment as that I could 
find mind enough to admire the beauty of her figure and the charm- 
ing grace of her posture as her form floated perpendicularly upon 
the staggering motions of the lugger. 

“ Now, Hugh !” she cried, as her outstretched hands were borne 
up to the level of mine. I caught her. She sprang, and was at my 
side in a breath. 

“ Nobly done,” Helga,” said I. “ Now over the rail with us !” 

She stopped to call to Abraham, with a voice in which I could 
trace no hurry of breathing, “Will you please hand me up my 
little parcel ?” 

This was done, and a minute later we had gained the poop of the 
bark. 

The man with the long whiskers advanced to the break of the 
short poop or upper deck as Helga and I ascended the ladder that 
led to it. He seized the brim of his hat, and, without lifting it, 
bowed his head as though to the tug he gave, and said, with a slight- 
ly nasal accent by no means Yankee, but of the kind that is common 
to the denomination of “ tub-thumpers,” 

“ I suppose you are the two distressed parties the sailor in the 
lugger called out about?” 

“We are, sir,” said I. “ May I take it that you are the captain 
of this bark ?” 

“ You may,” he responded, with his eyes fixed on Helga. “ Cap- 
tain Joppa Bunting, master of the bark Light of the World , from 
the river Thames for Table Bay, with a small cargo and for orders. 
That gives you everything, sir,” said he. 

He pulled at his long whiskers with a complacent smile, now con- 
templating me and now Helga. 

“ Captain Bunting,” said I, “this lady and myself are shipwrecked 
people, very eager indeed to get home. We have met with some 
hard adventures, and this lady, the daughter of the master of the 
bark Anine , has not only undergone the miseries of shipwreck, the 


166 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


hardships of a raft, and some days of wretchedness aboard that open 
boat alongside : she has been afflicted, besides, by the death of her 
father.” 

“Very sorry, indeed, to hear it, miss,” said the captain ; “ but let 
this be your consolation, that every man’s earthly father is bound to 
die at some time or other, but man’s Heavenly Father remains with 
him forever.” 

Helga bowed her head. Language of this kind in the mouth of 
a plain sea-captain comforted me greatly as a warrant of good-will 
and help. 

“ I’m sure,” said I, “ I may count upon your kindness to receive 
this lady and me, and put us aboard the first homeward-bound ship 
that we may encounter.” 

“ Why, of course ; it is my duty as a Christian man,” he answer- 
ed, “ to be of service to all sorrowing persons that I may happen to 
fall in with. A Deal lugger — as I may presume your little ship to 
be — is no fit abode for a young lady of sweet-and-twenty — ” 

He was about to add something, but at that moment Abraham 
came up the ladder, followed by the white man whom I had noticed 
standing on the forecastle. 

“ What can I do for you, my man ?” said the captain, turning to 
Abraham. 

“ Whoy, sir, it’s loike this — ” began Abraham. 

“ He wants us to give him a spare boom to serve as a mast, sir,” 
clipped in the other, who, as I presently got to know, was the first 
mate of the vessel — a sandy-haired, pale-faced man, with the light- 
est-blue eyes I had ever seen, a little pimple of a nose, which the 
sun had caught, and which glowed red, in violent contrast with his 
veal-colored cheeks. He was dressed in a plain suit of pilot-cloth, 
with a shovel - peaked cap ; but the old pair of carpet slippers he 
wore gave him a down-at-heels look. 

“ A spare boom !” cried the captain. “ That’s a big order, my 
lad. Why, the sight of your boat made me think I hadn’t got rid 
of the Downs yet ! There’s no hovelling to be done down here, is 
there ?” 

“ They’re carrying out the boat to Australia, sir !” said the mate. 

The captain looked hard at Abraham. 

“ For a consideration, I suppose ?” said he. 

“ Aye, sir, for a consideration, as you say,” responded Abraham, 
grinning broadly, and clearly very much gratified by the captain’s 
reception of him. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


167 


“ Then,” said the captain, pulling down his whiskers and smiling 
with an expression of self-complacency not to be conveyed in words, 
“ I do not for a moment doubt that you are carrying that lugger to 
Australia, for my opinion of the Deal boatmen is this : that for a 
consideration they would carry their immortal souls to the gates of 
the devil’s palace, and then return to their public-houses, get drunk 
on the money they had received, and roll about bragging how they 
had bested Old Nick himself ! Spare boom for a mast, eh ?” he 
continued, peering into Abraham’s face. “ What’s your name, my 
man ?” 

“Abraham Vise,” answered the boatman, apparently too much 
astonished as yet to be angry. 

“ Well, see here, friend Abraham,” said the captain, turning up 
his eyes and blandly pointing aloft, “ my ship isn’t a forest, and 
spare booms don’t grow aboard us. And yet,” said he, once again 
peering closely into Abraham’s face, “ you’re evidently a fellow-Chris- 
tian in distress, and it’s my duty to help you ! I suppose you are a 
Christian ?” 

“ Born one !” answered Abraham. 

“ Then, Mr. Jones,” exclaimed the captain, “ go round the ship 
with friend Abraham Vise, and see what’s to be come at in the shape 
of a spare boom. Off with you now. Time’s time on the ocean, 
and I can’t keep my tops’l aback all day.” 

The two men went off the poop. The captain asked me my name, 
then inquired Helga’s, and said, “Mr. Tregarthen, and you, Miss 
Nielsen, I will ask you to step below. I have a drop of wine in my 
cabin, and a glass of it can hurt neither of you. Come along, if you 
please,” and so saying he led the way to a little companion-hatch, 
down which he bundled, with Helga and myself in his wake ; and I 
recollect, as I turned to put my foot upon the first of the steps, that 
I took notice (with a sort of wonder in me that passed through my 
mind with the velocity of thought) of the lemon-colored face of a 
man standing at the wheel, with such a scowl upon his brow, that 
looked to be withered by the sun to the aspect of the rind of a rot- 
ten orange, and with such a fierce, glaring expression in his dusky 
eyes, the pupils of which lay like a drop of ink slowly filtering out 
upon a slip of colored blotting-paper, that but for the hurry I was 
in to follow the captain I must have lingered to glance again and 
yet again at the strange, fierce, forbidding creature. 

We entered a plain little state-cabin, or living-room, filled with 
the furniture that is commonly to be seen in craft of this sort — a 


168 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


table, lockers, two or three chairs, a swinging tray, a lamp, and the 
like. The captain asked us to sit, and disappeared in a berth for- 
ward of the state-cabin ; but he returned too speedily to suffer Helga 
and me to exchange words. He put a bottle of Marsala upon the 
table, took the wine-glasses from a rack affixed to a beam, and pro- 
duced from a side-locker a plate of mixed biscuits. He filled the 
glasses, and, with his singular smile and equally curious bow, drank 
our healths, adding that he hoped to have the pleasure of speedily 
trans-shipping us. 

He had removed his wide-awake hat, and there was nothing, for 
the moment, to distract me from a swift but comprehensive survey 
of him. He had a long hooked nose, small, restless eyes, and hair 
so plentiful that it curled upon his back. His cheeks were perfectly 
colorless, and of an unwholesome dinginess, and hung very fat be- 
hind his long whiskers, and I found him remarkable for the appear- 
ance of his mouth, the upper lip of which was as thick as the lower. 
He might have passed very well for a London tradesman — a man 
who had become almost bloodless through long years of serving be- 
hind a counter in a dark shop. He had nothing whatever of the 
sailor in his aspect — I do not mean the theatrical sailor, our old 
friend of the purple nose and grog-blossomed skin, but of that ordi- 
nary everyday mariner whom one may meet with in thousands in 
the docks of Great Britain. But that, however, which I seemed to 
find most remarkable in him was his smile. It was the haunting of 
his countenance by the very spectre of mirth. There was no life, no 
sincerity in it. Nevertheless, it caused a perpetual play of features 
more or less defined, informed by an expression which made one in- 
stantly perceive that Captain Joppa Bunting had the highest possi- 
ble opinion of himself. 

He asked me for my story, and I gave it him, he, meanwhile, lis- 
tening to me with his singular smile, and his eyes almost embarrass- 
ingly rooted upon my face. 

“ Ah !” cried he, fetching a deep sigh, “ a noble cause is the life- 
boat service. Heaven bless its sublime efforts ! and it is gratifying 
to know that Her Majesty the Queen is a patron of the institution. 
Mr. Tregarthen, your conscience should be very acceptable to you, 
sir, when you come to consider that but for you this charming young 
lady must have perished,” he motioned towards Helga with an un- 
gainly inclination of his body. 

“ I think, captain,” said I, “ you must put it the other way about 
— I mean, that but for Miss Nielsen / must have perished.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


169 


“ Nielsen — Nielsen,” said he, repeating the words. “ That is not 
an English name, is it ?” 

“Captain Nielsen was a Dane,” said I. 

“ But you are not a Dane, madam ?” he exclaimed. 

“ My mother was English,” she answered, “ but I am a Dane, nev- 
ertheless.” 

“ What is the religion of the Danes ?” he asked. 

“We are a Protestant people,” she answered, while I stared at 
the man, wondering whether he was perfectly sound in his head, for 
nothing could seem more malapropos at such a time as this than his 
questions about, and his references to, religion. 

“ What is your denomination, madam ?” he asked, smiling, with 
a drag at one long whisker. 

“ I thought I had made you understand that I was a Protestant,” 
she answered, with an instant’s petulance. 

“ There are many sorts of Protestants !” he exclaimed. 

“ Have not you a black crew ?” said I, anxious to change the sub- 
ject, sending a glance in search of Abraham through the window of 
the little door that led on to the quarter-deck, and that was framed 
on either hand by a berth or sleeping-room, from one of which the 
captain had brought the wine. 

“Yes, my crew are black,” said he; “black here” — he touched 
his face — “ and, I fear, black here” — he put his hand upon his heart. 
“ But I have some hope of beating out one superstition from them 
before we let go our anchor in Table Bay !” 

As he said these words a sudden violent shock was to be felt in 
the cabin, as though, indeed, the ship, as she dropped her stern into 
the trough, had struck the ground. All this time the vessel had 
been rolling and plunging somewhat heavily as she lay with her top- 
sail to the mast in the very swing of the sea ; but, after the uneasy, 
feverish friskings of the lugger, the motion was so long-drawn, so 
easy, so comfortable, in a word, that I had sat and talked scarcely 
sensible of it. But the sudden shock could not have been more 
startling, more seemingly violent, had a big ship driven into us. A 
loud cry followed. Captain Bunting sprang to his feet; at the same 
moment there was a hurried tramp and rush of footsteps overhead, 
and more cries. Captain Bunting ran to the companion-steps, up 
which he hopped with incredible alacrity. 

“ I fear the lugger has been driven against the vessel’s side !” said 
Helga. 

“ O Heaven, yes !” I cried. “ But I trust, for the poor fellows’ 
sake, she is not injured. Let us go on deck.” 


170 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


We ran up the steps, and the very first object I saw as I passed 
through the hatch was Jacob’s face, purple with the toil of climbing, 
rising over the rail on the quarter. Abraham and two or three col- 
ored men grasped the poor fellow, and over he floundered on to the 
deck, streaming wet. 

Helga and I ran to the side to see what had happened. There 
was no need to look long. Directly under the ship’s quarter lay the 
lugger with the water sluicing into her. The whole of one side of 
her was crushed as though an army of workmen had been hammer- 
ing at her with choppers. We had scarcely time to glance before 
she was gone ; a sea foamed over and filled her out of hand, and 
down she went like a stone, with a snap of the line that held her 
as though it had been thread, to the lift of the bark from the drown- 
ing fabric. 

“ Gone !” cried I. “ Heaven preserve us ! What will our poor 
friends do ?” 

Captain Bunting was roaring out in true sea-fashion. He might 
continue to smile, indeed ; but his voice had lost its nasal twang. 

“ How did this happen ?” he bawled. “ Why on earth wasn’t the 
lugger kept fended off? Mr. Jones, jump into that quarter-boat and 
see if we’ve received any injury.” 

The mate hopped into the boat, and craned over. “ It seems all 
right with us, sir !” he cried. 

“ Well, then, how did this happen ?” exclaimed the captain, ad- 
dressing Jacob, who stood, the very picture of distress and dejection, 
with the water running away upon the deck from his feet, and drain- 
ing from his finger-ends as his arms hung up and down as though 
he stood in a shower-bath. 

“ I’d gone forward,” answered the poor fellow, “ to slacken away 
the line that the lugger might drop clear, and then it happened, and 
that’s all I know,” and here he slowly turned his half-drowned be- 
wildered face upon Abraham, who was staring over the rail down 
upon the sea where the lugger had sunk, as though rendered mo- 
tionless by a stroke of paralysis. 

“ Well, and what ’ll you do now ?” cried Captain Bunting. 

“ Do ? Whoy chuck myself overboard !” shouted Jacob, apparently 
quickened into his old vitality by the anguish of sudden realization. 

“ Shocking !” cried Captain Bunting. “ I shall have to talk apart 
with you, my man.” 

Here Abraham slowly looked round, and then turned and lay 
against the rail, eying us lifelessly. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


171 


CHAPTER XV. 

CAPTAIN JOPPA BUNTING. 

There were four or five colored seamen standing near looking on. 
Though I could not have been sure, I guessed them to be Malays 
by the somewhat Chinese cast of their features. I had seen such 
faces once before, discoloring a huddle of white countenances of 
European seamen looking over the side of a ship, anchored in our 
bay, at the life-boat I was in charge of for an hour or two of prac- 
tice. I also caught the fierce, lemon-colored creature at the wheel 
following the captain, as he moved about, with his stealthy, dusky 
eyes ; but more than this I had not time to take notice of. 

“ Abraham !” I exclaimed, approaching him, “ this is a bad busi- 
ness.” 

“ Aye,” he muttered, drying his lips upon his knuckles. “ There’s 
nothen to do now but to get home again. I laid out fifteen pound 
for myself on this here job, an’ it’s gone, and gone, too, is the money 
we was to take up. Oh, Jacob, matey ! how came it about ? how 
came it about ?” he cried, in a voice of bitter grief that was without 
the least hint of temper or reproach. 

“ Ye’ve heard, Abraham,” answered the other, speaking brokenly. 
“Gord he knows how it happened. I’d ha’ given ten toimes ower 
the money we was to airn that this here mucking job had been yourn 
instead o’ mine that I might feel as sorry for ye, Abey, as ye are for 
me, mate.” 

“Is she clean gone?” cried Captain Bunting, looking over the 
quarter. “ Yes, clean. Nothing but her boat floating, and a few , 
spars. It is spilt milk, and not to be recovered by tears. You two 
men will have to go along with us till we can send the four of you 
home. Mr. Jones, fill on your top-sail, if you please ! Hi ! you 
Pallunappachelly, swab up that wet there, d’ye hear? Now t Moona, 
now Yong Soon Wat, and you, Shayoo Saibo — maintop-sail brace, 
and bear a hand !” 

While the top-sail yard was in the act of swinging, I observed that 
Abraham’s countenance suddenly changed. A fit of temper, resem- 


m 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


bling his outbreak when the Hamburger had passed us, darkened his 
face. He rolled his eyes fiercely, then, plucking off his cap, flung it 
savagely down upon the deck, aud while he tumbled and sprawled 
about in a sort of mad dance, he bawled at the top of his voice : 

“ I says it can't be true ! What I says is, it’s a dream — a bloom- 
ing, measly dream ! The Airly Mam foundered !” Here he gave 
his cap a lack that sent it flying the length of the poop. “ It’s a 
loye, I says. It was to ha’ been seventy-foive pound a man, and there 
was two gone, whose shares would ha’ been ourn. And where’s moy 
fifteen pound vorth o’ goods ? Cuss the hour, I says, that ever we 
fell in with this bark !’•’ 

He raved in this fashion for some minutes, the captain meanwhile 
eying him with his head on one side, as though striving to find out 
whether he was drunk or mad. He then rushed to the side with an 
impetuosity that made me fear he meant to spring overboard, and 
looking down for a moment, he bellowed forth, shaking his clinched 
fist at the sea : 

“ Yes, then she is gone, and ’tain’t a dream !” 

He fetched his thigh a mighty slap, and, wheeling round, stared at 
us in the manner of one temporarily bereft of his senses by the 
apparition of something he finds horrible. 

“These Deal boatmen have excitable natures!” said Captain Jop- 
pa Bunting, addressing me, fixedly smiling, and passing his fingers 
through a whisker as he spoke. 

“ I trust you will bear with the poor fellows,” said I ; “ it is a 
heavy loss to the men, and a death-blow to big expectations.” 

“ Temper is excusable occasionally at sea,” observed the captain ; 
“but language I never permit. Yet that unhappy Christian soul 
ought to be borne with, as you say, seeing that he is a poor, ignorant 
man, very sorely tried. Abraham Vise, come here !” he called. 

“ His name is Wise,” said I. 

“ Wise, come here !” he shouted. 

Abraham approached us with a slow, rolling gait, and a face in 
which temper was now somewhat clouded by bewilderment. 

“Abraham,” said the captain, looking from him to Jacob, who 
leaned, wet through, against the rail with a dogged face and his eyes 
rooted upon the deck, “ you hafl met with one of those severe re- 
verses which happen entirely for the good of the sufferer, however 
he may object to take that view. Depend upoh it, my man, that the 
loss of your lugger is for some wise purpose.” 

Abraham looked at him with an eye whose gaze delivered the 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 173 

word damn as articulately as ever his lips could have uttered the 
expletive. 

“You two men were going in that small open boat to Australia,” 
continued the captain, with a paternal air and a nasal voice, and smil- 
ing always. “Do you suppose you would ever have reached that 
distant coast ?” 

“ Sartainly I dew, sir,” cried Abraham, hoarsely, with a vehement 
nod. 

“ I say no , then !” thundered the captain. “ Two of you ! Why, 
I’ve fallen in with smaller luggers than yours cruising in the Channel 
with eight of a crew.” 

“ Aye !” shouted Abraham. “ And vy ? Only ask yourself the 
question ! ’Cause they carry men to ship as pilots. But tew can 
handle a lugger.” 

“I say no!” thundered the captain again. “What? All the way 
from the Chops to Sydney Bay? Who’s your navigator?” 

“ Oy am,” answered Abraham. 

The captain curved his odd, double-lipped mouth into a sneer, that 
yet somehow did not disguise or alter his habitual or congenital smile, 
while he ran his eye over the boatman’s figure. 

“You!” he cried, pausing and bursting into a loud laugh; then, 
resuming his nasal intonation, he continued. “ Mark you this now : 
The loss of your lugger alongside my bark is a miracle wrought 
by a bountiful Heaven to extend your existence, which you were de- 
liberately attempting to cut short by a dreadful act of folly, so dread- 
ful that had you perished by a like behavior ashore you would have 
been buried with a stake through your middle !” 

He turned up his eyes till little more than the whites of them 
were visible. Grieved as I was for poor Abraham, I scarcely saved 
myself from bursting out laughing, so ludicrous was the shifting 
emotions which worked in his face, and so absurd Jacob’s fixed stare 
of astonishment and wrath. 

“ Now, men,” continued the captain, “ you can go forward. What’s 
your name ?” 

“Jacob Minnikin, sir,” answered the boatman, speaking thickly 
and with difficulty. ^ 

“ Get you to the galley, Jacob Minnikin,” said the captain, “ and 
dry your clothes. The chief mate will show you where to find a 
couple of spare bunks in the forecastle. Go and warm yourselves 
and get something to eat. You’ll be willing to work, I hope, in, re- 
turn for my keeping you until I can send you home?” 


174 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


Abraham sullenly mumbled, “ Yes, sir.” 

“All right. We may not be long together; but while I have you 
I shall be thankful for you. We are a black crew, and the sight of 
a couple of white faces forward will do me good. Off you go, now !” 

Without another word the two men trudged off the poop ; but I 
could hear them muttering to each other as they went down the ladder. 

Some time before this they had trimmed sail, and the bark was once 
again clumsily breaking the seas, making a deal of noisy sputtering 
at her cut-water to the stoop of her apple-shaped bows, and rolling 
and plunging as though she were contending with the surge of Agul- 
has or the Horn. I sent my sight around the ocean, but there was 
nothing to be seen. The atmosphere had slightly thickened, and it 
was blowing fresh, but the wind was on the quarter, and the mate 
had found nothing in the weather to hinder him from showing the 
main-sail to it again with the port clew up. But the captain’s talk 
prevented me from making further observations at that time. 

“ Those two men,” said he, “ have very good, honest, substantial, 
Scriptural names. Abraham and Jacob,” he smacked his lips. “ I like 
’em. I consider myself fortunate in the name of Joppa,” he continued, 
looking from me to Helga. “ I might have been called Robert.” 

You would have thought that the smile which accompanied this 
speech was designed to point it as a joke, but a moment’s observation 
assured me that it was a fixed expression. 

“ I have observed,” he went on, “ that the lower orders are very 
dull and tardy in arriving at an appreciation of the misfortunes which 
befall them. Those two men, sir, are not in the least degree grateful 
for the loss of their lugger, by which, as I told them, their lives have 
been undoubtedly preserved.” 

“They are poor men,” said Helga, “and do not know how to be 
grateful for the loss of perhaps very nearly all that they have in the 
world.” 

He looked at her smilingly, with a glance down her figure, and ex- 
claimed, “ I am quite sure that when your poor dear father’s bark 
sank you did not resent the decree of Heaven.” 

Helga held her peace. 

“ Was she insured, madam ?” he asked. 

She answered briefly “ Yes,” not choosing to enter into explanations. 

He surveyed her thoughtfully, with his head on one side ; then, 
addressing me, he said, 

“ The man Abraham, now. I take it he was skipper of the lugger ?” 

“Yes, he was so,” said I. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


175 


“ Is it possible that he knows anything of navigation ?” 

“ I fear his acquaintance with that art is small. He can blunder 
upon the latitude with the aid of an old quadrant, but he leaves his 
longitude to dead reckoning.” 

“ And yet he was going to Australia !” cried the captain, tossing 
his pale, fleshy hands and upturning his eyes. “ Still, he is a respect- 
able man ?” 

“ A large-hearted, good man,” cried Helga, warmly. 

He surveyed her again thoughtfully, with his head on one side, 
slowly combing down one whisker, then addressing me : 

“ I am rather awkwardly situated,” said he. /“Mr. Ephraim Jones 
and myself are the only two white men aboard this vessel. Jones is 
an Only Mate. You know what that means?” 

I shook my head in my ignorance, with a glance at Helga. 

“Captain Bunting means,” she answered, smiling, “that Only Mate 
is literally the only mate that is carried in a ship.” 

He stared at her with lifted eyebrows, and then gave her a bow. 

“ Right, madam,” said he. “ And when you are married, dear lady, 
you will take all care, I trust, that your husband shall be your Only 
Mate.” 

She slightly colored, and as she swayed to the rolling deck I 
caught sight of her little foot petulantly beating the plank for a mo- 
ment. It was clear that Captain Bunting was not going to commend 
himself to her admiration by his wit. 

“ You were talking about Abraham,” said I. 

“No, I was talking about Jones,” he answered, “and attempting 
to explain the somewhat unpleasant fix I am in. The man who acted 
as second mate was the carpenter of the bark, a fellow named Win- 
stanley. I fear he went mad, after we were a day out. Whether 
he jumped overboard or fell overboard, I cannot say.” He made a 
wild grimace, as though the recollection shocked him. “ There was 
nothing for it but to pursue the voyage with my Only Mate ; and I, 
of course, have to keep watch-and-watch with him — a very great in- 
convenience to me. I believe Abraham Wise — or Vise, as he calls 
himself — would excellently fill the post vacated by Winstanley.” 

“ He wants to get home,” said I. 

“Yet I might tempt him to remain with me,” said he, smiling. 
“There’s no melody so alluring to a Deal boatman’s ears as the 
jingling of silver dollars.” 

“ You will find him thoroughly trustworthy,” said Helga. 

“ We will wait a little — we will wait a little!” he exclaimed, blandly. 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


176 

“ Of course, Captain Bunting,” said I, “ your views in the direction 
of Abraham will not, I am sure, hinder you from sending Miss Niel- 
sen and myself to England at the very earliest opportunity.” And 
I found my eye going seawards over the bark’s bow as I spoke. 

“ The very first vessel that comes along you shall be sent aboard 
of, providing, to be sure, she will receive you.” 

I thanked him heartily, and also added, in the most delicate mau- 
ner I could contrive on the instant, that all expense incurred by his 
keeping us should be defrayed. He flourished his fat hand. 

“ That is language to address to the Pharisee, sir — not to the Sa- 
maritan.” 

All this was exceedingly gratifying. My spirits rose, and I felt in 
a very good-humor with him. He looked at his watch. 

“ Five o’clock,” said he. “ Mr. Jones,” he called to the mate, who 
was standing forward at the head of the little poop-ladder, “ you can 
go below and get your supper, then relieve me. Tell Punmeamootty 
to put some cold beef and pickles on the table. Better let him set 
the ham on too, and tell the fool that it won’t bite him because it 
was once a pig. Punmeamootty can make some coffee, Mr. Jones; 
or perhaps you drink tea?” said he, turning to Helga. “ Well, both , 
Mr. Jones, both” he shouted ; “ tea and coffee. Make a good meal, 
sir, and then come and relieve me.” 

The mate vanished. Captain Bunting drew back by a step or two 
to cast a look aloft. He then, and with a sailorly eye methought, 
despite his whiskers and dingy fleshy face and fixed smile, sent a 
searching glance to windward, following it on with a cautious survey 
of the horizon. He next took a peep at the compass, and said some- 
thing to a mahogany-colored man who had replaced the fierce-look- 
ing fellow at the wheel. I observed that when the captain approached 
the man stirred uneasily in his shoes, ’twixt which and the foot of 
his blue dungaree breeches there lay visible the bare, yellow flesh of 
his ankles. 

I said softly and quickly to Helga, “ This is a very extraordinary 
ship-master.” 

“ Something in him repels me,” she answered. 

“ He is behaving kindly and hospitably, though.” 

“ Yes, Hugh ; still, I shall be glad to leave the bark. What a 
very strange crew the ship carries ! What are they ?” 

“ I will ask him,” said I, and at that moment he rejoined us. 

“ Captain,” I exclaimed, “ what countrymen are your sailors, pray ?” 

“ Mostly Malays, with a few Cingalese among them,” he answered. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


177 


“ I got them on a sudden, and was glad of them, I can tell you. I 
had shipped an ordinary European crew in the Thames ; and in the 
Downs, where we lay wind-bound for three days, every man-jack of 
them, saving Mr. Jones and Winstanley, lowered that quarter-boat,” 
said he, nodding to it, “ one dark night, chucked their traps in, and 
went away for Dover round the South Foreland. I recovered the 
boat, and was told that there was a crew of Malays lodged at the 
Sailors’ Home at Dover. A vessel from Ceylon that had touched at 
the Cape and taken in some colored seamen there had stranded, a 
night or two before my men deserted, somewhere off the South Sand 
Head. She was completely wrecked, and her crew were brought to 
Dover. There were eleven of them in all, with a boss, or bo’s’n, or 
serang, call him what you will — there he is !” He pointed to a dark- 
skinned fellow on the forecastle. “ Well, to cut the story short, when 
these fellows heard I was bound to the Cape they were all eager to 
ship. They offered their services for very little money — very little 
money, indeed,” he added, smiling, “their object being to get home. 
I had no idea of being detained in the Downs for a crew, and I had 
no heart, believe me, to swallow another dose of the British merchant 
sailor, so I had them brought aboard — and there they are !” he ex- 
claimed, gazing complacently forward and aft ; “ but they are black 
inside and out. They’re Mahometans, to a man, and now I’m sorry 
I shipped them, though I hope to do good — yes,” said he, nodding 
at me, “ I hope to do good.” 

He communicated to this final sentence all the significance that it 
was in the power of his countenance and manner to bestow ; but 
what he meant I did not trouble myself to inquire. Mr. Jones re- 
mained below about ten minutes; he then arrived, and the captain, 
who was asking Helga questions about her father’s ship, the cause of 
her loss, and the like, instantly broke off on seeing the mate, and 
asked us to follow him to the cabin. 

The homely interior looked vefy hospitable, with its table cleanly 
draped and pleasantly equipped with provisions. The colored man, 
who apparently acted as steward, and who bore the singular name of 
Punmeamootty, stood, a dusky shadow, near the cabin door. Spite 
of a smoky sunset in the western windy haze, the gloom of the even- 
ing in the east was already upon the ocean, and the cabin, as we en- 
tered it, showed somewhat darksome to the sight ; yet though the 
figure of the Malay, as I have already said, was no more than a shadow, 
I could distinctly see his gleaming eyes even from the distance of 
the companion steps ; and I believe had it been much darker still 
12 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


178 

should have beheld his eyes looking at us from the other end of the 
cabin. 

“ Light the lamp, Punmeamootty !” said the captain. “ Now, let 
me see,” said he, throwing his wide-awake on to a locker, “ we call 
the last meal supper at sea, Miss Nielsen.” 

“ Yes, I know that,” she answered. 

“ Before we go to supper,” he continued, “ you would like to re- 
fresh yourself in a cabin. How about accommodating you, Mr. Tre- 
garthen ? That cabin is mine,” said he, pointing, “ and the one facing 
it is Mr. Jones’s. There are four gloomy little holes below, one of 
which was occupied by poor Winstanley, and the others, I fear, are 
choke full of stores and odds and ends.” He eyed her for a moment 
meditatively. “ Come,” said he, “ you are a lady, and must be made 
comfortable, however short your stay with me may be. Mr. Jones 
will give up his cabin and go into the steerage !” 

“ And Mr. Tregarthen ?” said Helga. 

“ Oh, I’ll set some of our darkeys after supper to make ready one 
of the berths below for him.” 

“ I do not wish to be separated from Mr. Tregarthen,” said Helga. 

Captain Bunting looked at her, then at me, then at her left hand, 
for the colored steward had now lighted the lamp and we were con- 
versing close to it. 

“You are Miss Nielsen?” said the captain. “Have I mistaken?” 

The blood rose to the girl’s cheek. 

“ No, you have not mistaken,” said I ; “ Miss Nielsen and I have 
now for some days been fellow-sufferers, and, for acquaintance’ sake, 
she wishes her berth to be near mine !” 

This I said soothingly, for I thought the skipper’s brow looked a 
little clouded. 

“ Be it so,” said he, with a bland flourish of both hands ; “ mean- 
while, madam, such conveniences as my cabin affords are at your 
service for immediate use.” 

She hesitated, but on meeting my eye seemed immediately to catch 
what was in my mind, and, smiling prettily, she thanked him, and 
went at once to his cabin. 

“ The fact is, sir,” said he, nasally, dragging at the wristband of 
his shirt and looking at his nails, “ man at the best is but a very 
selfish animal, and cruelly neglectful of the comfort and happiness of 
women. Pardon my frankness. Your charming companion has been 
exposed for several days to the horrors of what was really no better 
than an open boat. What more natural than that she should wish 


While he addressed the boatmen , the others stood doggedly looking on. 






THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


179 


to adjust her hair and take a peep at herself in a looking-glass ? And 
yet” — here he smiled profoundly — “the suggestion that she should 
withdraw did not come from yow.” 

“The kindness of your reception of us,” I answered, “assured me 
that you would do everything that is necessary.” 

“ Quite so,” he answered ; “ and now, Mr. Tregarthen, I dare say 
a brush-up will comfort you, too. You will find all that you require 
in Mr. Jones’s cabin.” 

I thanked him, and at once entered the berth, hardly knowing as 
yet whether to be amused or astonished by the singular character of 
this long-whiskered, blandly-smiling, and, as I might fairly believe, 
religious sea-captain. 

There was a little window in the berth that looked on to the quar- 
ter-deck. On peering through it I spied Abraham and Jacob with 
their arms buried to the elbow in their breeches’ pockets, leaning, 
with dogged mien, in the true loafing, lounging, longshore posture, 
against the side of the caboose or galley. The whole ship’s com- 
pany seemed to have gathered about them. I counted nine men. 
There was a rusty tinge in the atmosphere that gave me a tolerable 
sight of all those people. It was the first dog-watch, when the men 
would be free to hang about the decks and smoke and talk. The 
colored sailors formed a group, in that dull, hectic light, to dwell 
upon the memory — one with a yellow sou’-wester, another with a 
soldier’s forage-cap on his head, a third in a straw hat, along with 
divers scarecrow-like costumes of dungaree and coarse canvas jumpers 
— here a jacket resembling an evening-dress coat that had been robbed 
of its tails, there a pair of flapping skirts, a red wool comforter, half- 
wellington boots, old shoes, and I know not what besides. 

The man that had been pointed out to me as “ boss ” — to employ 
Captain Bunting’s term — was addressing the two boatmen as I 
looked. He was talking in a low voice, and not the lightest growl 
of his accents reached me. Now and again he would smite his 
hands and act as though betrayed by temper into a sudden vehement 
delivery, from which he swiftly recovered himself, so to speak, with 
an eager look aft at the poop-deck, where, I might suppose, the mate 
stood watching them, or where, at all events, he would certainly be 
walking, on the lookout. While he addressed the boatmen, the 
others stood doggedly looking on, all, apparently, intent upon the 
countenances of our Deal friends, whose attitude was one of con- 
temptuous inattention. 

However, by this time I had refreshed myself with a wash, and 


180 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


now quitted the cabin after a slight look round, in which I took 
notice of the portrait of a stout lady cut out in black paper and 
pasted upon a white card, a telescope, a sextant case, a little battery 
of pipes in a rack over the bunk. 

Helga arrived, holding her seal-skin hat in her hand. Her amber- 
colored hair — for sometimes I would think it of this hue, at others 
a pale gold, then a very fine, delicate yellow — showed with a little 
roughness in it as though she were fresh from the blowing of the 
wind. But had she been an artist she could not have expressed 
more choiceness in her fashion of neglect. She had heartened and 
brightened greatly since our rescue from the raft, and, though there 
were still many traces of her grief and sufferings in her face, there 
was likewise the promise that she needed but a very short term of 
good usage from life to bloom into as sweet, modest, and gentle a 
maiden as a man’s heart could wish to hold to itself. 

The captain, motioning us to our places, took his seat at the head 
of the table with a large air of hospitality in his manner of drawing 
out his whiskers and inflating his waistcoat. The vessel creaked and 
groaned noisily as she pitched and rolled, so slanting the table that, 
but for the rough, well-used fiddles, every article upon it would have 
speedily tumbled on to the deck. The lamp burned brightly, and 
almost eclipsed the rusty complexion of daylight that lay upon the 
glass of the little skylight directly over our heads. 

Punmeamootty waited nimbly upon us, though my immediate im- 
pression was that his alacrity was not a little animated by fear and 
dislike. As the captain sat smilingly recommending the ham that 
he was carving — dwelling much upon it, and talking of the pig as 
an animal on the whole more serviceable to man than the cow — I 
caught the colored steward watching him as he stood some little 
distance away upon the skipper’s left, with his dusky, shining eyes 
in the corner of their sockets. It reminded me of the look I had 
observed the fierce - looking fellow at the wheel fasten upon the 
captain. It was as though the fellow cursed him with his dusky 
gaze. Yet there was nothing forbidding in his face, despite his 
ugliness. His skin was of the color of the yolk of an egg, and he 
had a coarse, heavy nose, which made me suspect a Dutch hand in 
the man’s creation. His hair was coal-black, long, and lank, after 
the Chinese pattern. It would have been hard to guess his age from 
such a mask of a face as he carried ; but the few bristles on his 
upper lip suggested youth, and I dare say I was right in thinking 
him about two-and-twenty. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


181 


The captain talked freely ; sometimes he omitted his nasal twang* ; 
but his conversation was threaded with pious reflections, and I took 
notice of a tendency in the man to sermonize, as though little in the 
most familiar talk could occur out of which a salutary moral was 
not to be squeezed. He seemed to be very well pleased to have us 
on board, not, perhaps, so much because our company was a break as 
because it provided him with an opportunity to philosophize, and 
to air his sentiments. I shall not be thought very grateful for thus 
speaking of a man who had rescued us from a trying and distressful 
situation, and who was entertaining us kindly, and, I may say, bounti- 
fully ; but my desire is to give you the truth — to exactly describe as 
best I can what I saw and suffered in this strange passage of my life, 
and the portrait I am attempting of Captain Joppa Bunting is as the 
eyes of my head, and of my mind, too, beheld him. 

As I looked at him sitting at the table, of a veal-like complexion 
in that light, blandly gesticulating with his fat hands, expressing 
himself with a nasal gravity that was at times diverting with the 
smile that accompanied it, it seemed difficult to believe that he was 
a merchant captain, the master of as commonplace an old ocean 
wagon as ever crushed a sea with a round bow. I asked him how 
long he had followed the life, and he astonished me by answering 
that he was now forty-four, and that he had been apprenticed to the 
sea at the age of twelve. 

“ You will have seen a very great deal in that time, captain,” said I. 

“ I believe there is no wonder of the Lord visible upon the face 
of the deep which I have not viewed,” he responded. “ There is no 
part of the world which I have not visited. I have coasted the Ant- 
arctic zone of ice in a whaler, and I have been becalmed for seventeen 
weeks right off, with thirty miles of motion only in those seventeen 
weeks, upon the parallel of one degree north.” 

On this I observed that Helga eyed him with interest, yet I 
seemed to be sensible, too, of an expression of recoil in her face, if 
I may thus express what I do not know how better to define. 

“ You have worn wonderfully well,” said I. 

“ I have taken care of myself,” he answered, smiling. 

“ Is this your ship, sir ?” 

“ I have a large interest in her,” he replied. “ I am very well 
content to follow the sea. The sense of being watched over js com- 
forting, and often exhilarating ; but I wish,” he exclaimed, with a 
solemn wagging of his head, “ that the obligation to make money in 
this life was less, much less, than it is.” 


182 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ It is the only life in which we shall require money,” said Helga. 

“True, madam,” said he, with an apparently careless but puzzling 
glance at her; “but let me tell you that the obligation of money- 
making soils the soul. I am not surprised that the godliest of the 
good men of old took up their abode in caves, were satisfied with 
roots for dinner, and were as happy in a sheep’ s-skin as a dandy in 
a costume by Poole. I defy a man to practice virtue and make 
money too. Punmeamootty, put some wine into the lady’s glass.” 

Helga declined. The Malay was moving swiftly to execute the 
order, but stopped dead on her saying no, and with insensible and 
mouse -like movements regained his former post, where he stood 
watching the captain as before. 

“ Yes,” said I ; “ this world would be a pleasant one if we could 
manage without money.” 

“ For myself,” said he, casting his eyes over the table, “ I could 
do very Well with a crust of bread and a glass of water ; but I have 
a daughter, Judith Ruby, and I have to work for her.” 

This brought a little expression of sympathy into Helga’s face. 

“ Is she your only daughter, Captain Bunting ?” she asked. 

“ My only daughter,” he answered, with a momentary softening 
of his voice. “ I wish I had her here !” said he. “ You would find 
her, Miss Nielsen, a good, kind, religious girl. She is lonely in her 
home when I am away. I am a widower. My dear wife fell asleep 
six years ago.” 

He sighed, but he was smiling, too, as he did so. 

The windows of the skylight had now turned into gleaming ebony 
against the darkness of the evening outside, and reflected the white 
table-cloth and the sparkling glass and our figures as though it were 
a black polished mirror over our heads. I had taken notice of a 
sharper inclination in the heel of the bark when she rolled to lee- 
ward, and, though I was no sailor, yet my ears, accustomed to the 
noises of the coast, had caught a keener edge in the hum of the 
wind outside, a more fretful hissing in the stroke of every sea smit- 
ing the bends. An order was delivered from the deck above us, 
and, shortly afterwards, a singular sound of howling arose, accom- 
panied with the slatting and flapping of canvas. 

“ Mr. Jones is taking the main-sail off her,” said the captain, “ but 
the glass is very steady. We shall have a fine night,” he added, 
smiling at Helga. 

“ Is that strange wailing noise made by the crew ?” she asked. 

“ It is, madam. The Malays are scarcely to be called nightingales. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


183 


They are pulling at the ropes, and they sing as they pull. It is a 
habit among sailors — but you do not require me to tell you that.” 

“ I believe there is very little in seamanship, Captain Bunting,” 
said I, “ that even you, with your long experience, could teach Miss 
Nielsen.” 

She looked somewhat wistfully at me, as though she would dis- 
courage any references to her. 

“ Indeed !” he exclaimed. “ I should like to hear your nautical 
accomplishments.” 

“ It was my humor to assist my father when at sea,” she said, 
with her eyes fixed on the table. 

“ Now, what can you do ?” said he, watching her. “ Pray tell 
me? A knowledge of the sea among your sex is so rare that a 
sailor could never value it too greatly in a lady.” 

“ Let me answer for Miss Nielsen, captain,” I exclaimed, careless- 
ly, with a glance at the Malay steward, whose gaze, like the cap- 
tain’s, was also directed at Helga. “ She can put a ship about, she 
can steer, she can loose a jib, and run aloft as nimbly as the smart- 
est sailor ; she can stand- a watch and work a ship in it, and she can 
take sights and give you a vessel’s place on the chart — within a mile, 
shall 1 say, Helga?” 

He looked at me on my pronouncing the word “ Helga.” I do not 
know that I had before called the girl thus familiarly in his presence. 

“ You are joking, Mr. Tregarthen,” said he. 

A little smile of appeal to me parted Helga’s lips. 

“ No, no,” said I, “ I am not joking. It is all true. She is the 
most heroical of girls, besides. We owe our preservation to her 
courage and knowledge. Helga, may God bless you, and grant us 
a safe and speedy return to a home where, if the dear heart in it is 
still beating, we shall meet with a sweet welcome, be sure.” 

“But you must not be in a hurry to return home,” exclaimed the 
captain, turning his smiling countenance to Helga ; “you must give 
me time to tempt you to remain on board The Light of the World . 
Your qualifications as a sailor should make you an excellent mate, 
and you will tell me how much a month you will take to serve in 
that capacity ?” 

I observed the same look of recoil in her face that I had before 
seen in it. A woman’s instincts, thought I, are often amazingly 
keen in the interpretation of men’s minds. Or is she merely nerv- 
ous and sensitive, with a gentle, pretty modesty and bashfulness 
which render direct allusions to her after this pattern distressing? 


184 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


For my part, I could find no more than what the French call 
badinage in the captain’s speech, with nothing to render it sig- 
nificant outside the bare meaning of the words in his looks or 
manner. 

She did not answer him, and by way of changing the subject, be- 
ing also weary of sitting at that table, for we had finished the meal 
some time, though the Malay continued to look on, as though wait- 
ing for the order to clear away, I pulled out my watch. 

“A quarter to seven,” I exclaimed. “You will not wish to be 
late to-night, Helga? You require a good long sleep. By this time 
to-morrow we may have shifted our quarters ; but we shall always 
gratefully remember Captain Bunting’s goodness.” 

“That reminds me,” said he; “your cabins must be got ready. 
Punmeamootty, go forward and tell Nakier to send a couple of hands 
aft to clear out two of the berths below. No ! tell Nakier I want 
him, and then come aft and clear the table.” 

The man, gliding softly but moving swiftly, passed through the 
door-way that led on to the quarter-deck. 

“ I wish I could tempt you, Miss Nielsen,” continued the captain, 
“to take Mr. Jones’s cabin. You will be so very much more com- 
fortable there.” 

“ I would rather be near Mr. Tregarthen, thank you,” she an- 
swered. 

“You are a fortunate man to be so favored!” he exclaimed, smil- 
ing at me. “ However, every convenience that my cabin can supply 
shall be placed at Miss Nielsen’s disposal. Alas ! now, if my dear 
Judith were here! She would improve, by many womanly suggest- 
ions, my humble attempts as a Samaritan. Our proper business in 
this world, Mr. Tregarthen, is to do good to one another. But the 
difficulty,” he exclaimed, with a sweep of his hand, “ is to do all the 
good that can be done ! Now, for instance, I am at a. loss. Hovv 
am I to supply Miss Nielsen’s needs?” 

“ They are of the simplest — are they not, Helga ?” said I. 

“ Quite the simplest, Captain Bunting,” she answered ; and then, 
looking at him anxiously, she added : “ My one great desire now is 
to get to England. I have been the cause of taking Mr. Tregarthen 
from his mother, and I shall not feel happy until they are together 
again !” 

“ Charity forbid !” exclaimed the captain, “ that I should question 
for an instant the heroism of Mr. Tregarthen’s behavior ! But,” 
said he, slightly lowering his voice and stooping his smiling face at 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


185 


her, so to say, “ when your brave friend put off in the life-boat he did 
not, I may take it, know that you were on board ?” 

“ But I was on board,” she answered, quickly ; “ and he has saved 
my life, and I wish him to return to his mother, who may believe 
him drowned and be mourning him as dead.” 


CHAPTER XYI. 

ON BOARD THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 

At that moment the man whom the captain styled Nakier entered 
the little cuddy, followed by the steward. He made a singular gest- 
ure, a sort of salaam, bowing his head and whipping both hands to 
his brow, but with something of defiance in the celerity of the gest- 
ure. He was the man whom I had seen haranguing the two boat- 
men. He had a large, fine, intelligent eye, liquid and luminous, de- 
spite the Asiatic duskiness of its pupil ; his features were regular and 
almost handsome ; an aquiline nose, thin and well chiselled at the 
nostrils, a square brow, small ears decorated with thick gold hoops, 
and teeth as though formed of china. The expression of his face 
was mild and even prepossessing, his complexion a light yellow. He 
bore in his hand what had apparently been a soldier’s foraging-cap, 
and was dressed in an old pilot-jacket, a red shirt, and a pair of can- 
vas breeches held by a belt, to which was attached a sheath contain- 
ing a knife lying tight against his hip. He took Helga and I in 
with a rapid roll of his handsome eyes, then looked straight at the 
captain in a posture of attention, with a little contraction of the 
brow. 

“ I want a couple of the berths below cleared out at once,” said 
the captain. “Goh Syn Koh seems one of the smartest among you; 
send him. Also send Mow Lauree. He can make a bed, I hope? 
He is making a be4 for himself ! Bear a hand and clear this table, 
Punmeamootty, so as to be able to assist. You’ll superintend the 
work, Nakier. See all clean and comfortable.” 

“ Yaas, sah,” said the man. 

He was going. 

“ Stop !” exclaimed the captain, smiling all the time he continued 
to talk. “ Did you eat your dinner to-day ?” 


186 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“No, sah.” 

“ What has become of it ?” 

“ Overboard, sah,” answered the man, preserving his slight frown. 

“ Overboard ! As good a mess of pork and pea-soup as was ever 
served out to a ship’s company. Overboard ! That is the third 
time. If it happens again ” — he checked himself, with a glance at 
Helga — “ if it happens again,” he went on, speaking with an air of 
concern, “ I shall be obliged to stop the beef.” 

“We cannot eat pork, sah — we are Mussulmen ” — he was pro- 
ceeding. 

The captain silenced him with a bland motion of the hand. 

“ Send the men aft, Nakier,” said he, with a small increase of 
nasal twang in his utterance, “ and see that the cleaning and the 
clearance out is thorough.” 

He gave him a hard, significant nod, and the man marched out, 
directing an eager look at me as he wheeled round, as though for 
my sympathy. 

Punmeamootty was clearing the table with much ill-dissembled 
agitation in the hurry of his movements; his swift glances went 
from the captain to me, and then to Helga. They were like the 
flashing of a stiletto, keen as the darting blue gleam of the blade, 
and they would be as murderous, too, I thought, if the man could 
execute his wishes with his eyes. I believed the captain would now 
make some signal to leave the table, but he continued to sit on. 

“ Hid you observe that man just now ?” said he, addressing Helga. 

She answered, “Yes.” 

“ Handsome, do you think ?” said he, combing a whisker. 

“ He had a mild, pleasant face,” she answered. 

“ His name,” said he, “ is Yangoor Nakier. He is boss of the na- 
tive crew, and I allow him to act as a sort of boatswain. It is hard 
to reconcile so agreeable a countenance with the horrible and awful 
belief which must make him for ever and ever a lost soul, if he is not 
won over in plenty of time for repentance, for prayer, and mortifi- 
cation.” 

“You seem to have the fellows’ names very pat,” said I. “Are 
you acquainted with the Malay tongue?” 

“ Ah,” cried he, with a shake of the head, “ I wish I were ! I 
might then prove a true missionary to the poor benighted fellows. 
Yet I shall hope to have broken heavily into their deplorable and 
degraded superstitions before I dismiss them at Cape Town.” 

I caught sight of the shadowy form of the steward lurking abaft 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 18f 

the companion-steps, where he seemed busy with some plates and a 
basket. 

“ It is your hope,” said I, “ to convert the Mussulmen ?” 

“ It is my hope, indeed,” he answered ; “ and pray, what honester 
hope should possess a man ?” 

“ It is an admirable desire,” said I, “ but a little dangerous, per- 
haps.” 

“Why?” asked he. 

“Well,” said I, “I am no traveller. I have seen nothing of the 
world, but I have read, and I have always gathered from books of 
voyages that there is no class of men more bigoted in their faith and 
more treacherous in their conduct than Malay seamen.” 

“ Hush !” cried Helga, putting her finger to her lips and looking 
in the direction of the steward. 

The captain turned in his chair. 

“Are you there, Punmeamootty ?” 

“ Yes, sah ;” and his figure came swiftly gliding into the light. 

“ Go below and help the others. They should be at work by this 
time.” 

The man went out on to the quarter-deck, where, close against the 
cuddy front, lay the little hatch that conducted to the steerage. 

“You are quite right,” exclaimed the captain, lying back and ex- 
panding his waistcoat. “ Malay seamen are, undoubtedly, treacher- 
ous. In fact, treachery is part and parcel of the Malay character. 
It is the people of that nation who run amuck, you know.” 

“ What is that ?” inquired Helga. 

“A fellow falls crazy,” answered the captain, smiling, “whips #ut 
a weapon called a creese, and stabs and kills as many as he can en- 
counter as he flies through the streets.” 

“ They are a people to live on good terms with,” said Helga, look- 
ing at me. 

“ They are a people,” said the captain, nasally accentuating his 
words, “ who are to be brought to a knowledge of the Light ; and 
in proportion as the effort is dangerous, so should the worker glory 
in his task.” 

He gazed at Helga, as. though seeking her approval of this senti- 
ment ; but she was looking at me with an expression of anxiety in 
her soft blue eyes. 

“ I gather,” said I, with curiosity stimulated by thought of the 
girl’s and my situation aboard this homely little bark, with her sin- 
gular skipper and wild, dark crew — “ I gather, Captain Bunting, from 


188 


my Danish sweetheart: 


what has passed, that the blow you are now levelling at these fellows’ 
superstitions, as you call them, is aimed at their diet ?” 

“Just so,” he answered. “I am trying to compel them to eat 
pork. Who knows that before the equator be crossed I may not 
have excited a real love for pork among them ? That would be a 
great work, sir. It will sap one of the most contemptible of their 
superstitions, and provide me with a little crevice for the insertion 
of the wedge of truth.” 

“I believe pork,” said I, “is not so much a question of religion 
as a question of health with these poor dark creatures, bred in hot 
latitudes.” 

“ Pork enters largely into their faith,” he answered. 

“ So far you have not been very successful, I think ?” 

“ No. You heard what Vanjoor Nakier said. The wasteful 
wretches have for the third time cast their allowance overboard. 
Only think, Miss Nielsen, of wilfully throwing over the rail as much 
hearty, excellent food — honest salt pork and very fair pea-soup — as 
would keep a poor family at home in dinners for a week !” 

“ What do they eat instead ?” she asked. 

“Why, on pork days, biscuit, I suppose. There is nothing else.” 

“You give them beef every other day?” said I. 

“Beef and duff,” he answered; “but I shall stop that. Famine 
may help me in dealing with their superstitions.” 

It was not for me, partaking, as Helga and I were, of this man’s 
hospitality, using his ship, dependent upon him, indeed, for my 
speedy return home with Helga— it was not for me, I say, at this 
em-ly time, at all events, to remonstrate with him, to tell him that, 
exalted as he might consider his motives, they were urging him into 
a very barbarous, cruel behavior; but as I sat looking at him, my 
emotion, spite of his claims upon my kindness, was one of hearty 
disgust, with deeper feelings working in me besides, when I consid- 
ered that if our evil fortune forced us to remain for any length of 
time on board The Light of the World , we might find his theory of 
conversion making his ship a theatre for as bad a tragedy as was 
ever enacted upon the high seas. 

On a sudden he looked up at a little timepiece that was ticking 
against a beam just over his head. 

“Have you any acquaintance with the sea, Mr. Tregarthen?” he 
asked. 

“ Merely a boating acquaintance,” I replied. 

“ Could you stand a watch ?” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


189 


“ I could keep a lookout,” said I, a little dismayed by these 
questions, “ but I am utterly ignorant of the handling of a ship.” 

He looked reflectively at Helga, then at me, pulling down first 
one whisker, then the other, while his thick lips lay broad in a smile 
under his long, hooked nose. 

“Oh, well,” said he, “Abraham Wise will do.” He went to the 
cuddy door, and called, “ Forward there !” 

“Yaas, sah,” came a thick, Africander-like note out of the fore- 
castle obscurity. 

“Ask Abraham Wise to step aft.” 

He resumed his seat, and in a few minutes Abraham arrived. 
Helga instantly rose, and gave him her hand with a sweet, cordial 
smile that was full of her gratification at the sight of him. For my 
part, it did my heart good to see him. After the tallowy counte- 
nance and odd talk of the captain, and the primrose complexions 
and scowling glances of his Malays, there was real refreshment to 
the spirits to be got out of the homely English face and English 
longshore garb of the boatman, with the man’s suggestions, besides, 
of the English Channel and of home. 

“And how is Jacob?” said I. 

“ Oh, he’s a-feeling a little better, sir. A good bit down, of course, 
as we both are. ’Tain’t realizable even now.” 

“ Do you refer to the loss of your lugger ?” said Captain Bunting. 

“Aye, sir, to the Airly Mam” answered Abraham, confronting 
him, and gazing at him with a steadfastness that slightly increased 
his squint. 

“ But, surely, my good fellow,” cried the captain, “ you had plenty 
of time, I hope, to feel thoroughly grateful for your preservation 
from the dreadful fate which lay before you had Providence suffered 
you to continue your voyage ?” 

“ Oy dunno about dreadful fate,” answered Abraham ; “ all I can 
say is I should be blooming glad if that there Airly Mam was afloat 
again, or if so be as we’d never fallen in with this here Light of the 
World.” 

“ It is as I told you, you perceive,” exclaimed the captain, smiling 
and addressing Helga and me in his blandest manner ; “ as we descend 
the social scale, recognition of signal and providential mercies grows 
feebler and feebler, until it dies out — possibly before it gets down to 
Deal boatmen. I want a word with you, Abraham Wise. But first, 
how have you been treated forward ?” 

“ Oh, werry well indeed, sir,” he answered, “ the mate showed us 


190 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


where to tarn in when the time comes round, and I dessay we’ll 
manage to git along all right till we gets clear of ye.” 

“ What have you had to eat ?” 

“ The mate gave us a little bit o’ pork for to be biled, but ye’ve 
got a black cook forrads as seemed to Jacob and me to take the 
dressing of that there meat werry ill.” 

The captain seemed to motion the matter aside with his hand, and 
said: “ My vessel is without a second mate ; I mean, a man qualified 
to take charge of the deck when Mr. Jones and I are below. Now, 
I am thinking that you would do very well for that post.” 

“ I’d rather go home, sir,” said Abraham. 

“Aye,” said the captain, complacently surveying him, “but while 
you are with me, you know, you must be prepared to do your bit. I 
find happiness assisting a suffering man. But,” he added, nasally, 
“ in this world we must give and take. You eat my meat and sleep 
in what I think I may fairly term my bedroom. What pay do I 
exact ? Simply the use of your eyes and limbs.” 

He glanced with a very self-satisfied expression at Helga. It seemed, 
indeed, that most of his talk now was at her when not directly to her. 
She had come round to my side of the table after leaving Abraham, 
and I had given her my chair and stood listening with my hand on 
the back of it. 

“ I’m quite willing to tarn to,” said Abraham, “ while I’m along 
with ye, sir. I ain’t afeared of work. I don’t want no man’s grub 
nor shelter for nothen.” 

“ Quite right,” said the captain, “those are respectable sentiments. 
Of course, if you accepted my offer I should pay you, give you the 
wages that Winstanley had — four pounds a month for the round 
voyage.” 

Abraham scratched the back of his head and looked at me. This 
proposal evidently put a new complexion upon the matter to his mind. 

“You can handle a ship, I presume?” continued the captain. 

“ Whoy, yes,” answered Abraham, with a grin of wonder at the 
question ; “ if I ain’t been poiloting long enough to know that sort 
o’ work ye shall call me a Malay.” 

“ I should not require a knowledge of navigation in you,” said the 
captain. 

Abraham responded with a bob of the head, then scratching at his 
back hair afresh, said, “ I must ask leave to tarn the matter over. I 
should like to talk with my mate along o’ this.” 

“ I’ll put him on the articles, too, if be likes, at the current wages,” 


THE ROMANCE* OF A MONTH. 


191 


said the captain. “ However, think over it. You can let me know 
to-morrow. But I shall expect you to take charge during the middle 
watch.” 

“That I’ll willingly dew, sir,” answered Abraham. “But how 
about them Ceylon chaps and Malays forrads? Dew they understand 
sea-tarms?” 

“ Perfectly well,” answered the captain, “ or how should I and Mr. 
Jones get along, think you ?” 

“Well,” exclaimed Abraham, “I han’t had much to say to ’em 
as yet. One chap’s been talking a good deal this evening, and 
I allow he’s got a grievance, as most sailors has. There’s some 
sort o’ difficulty; I allow it lies in the eating; but a man wants 
practice to follow noicely what them there sort o’ colored covies has 
to say.” 

“ Well,” exclaimed the captain, with another bland wave of the 
hand in dismissal of the subject, “ we understand each other, at all 
events, my lad.” 

He went to the locker from which he had extracted the biscuits, 
produced a bottle of rum, and filled a wineglass. 

“ Neat or with water ?” said he, smiling. 

“ I’ve pretty nigh had enough water for to-day, sir,” answered Abra- 
ham, grinning too, and looking very well pleased at this act of atten- 
tion. “ Here’s to you, sir, I’m sure, and wishing you a prosperous 
woyage. Mr. Tregarthen, your health, sir, and yourn, Miss, and may 
ye both soon get home and find everything comfortable and roight.” 
He drained the glass with a smack of his lips. “As pretty a little 
drop o’ rum as I’ve had this many a day,” said he. 

“ You can tell Jacob to lay aft presently,” said the captain, “ when 
the steward is at liberty, and he will give him such another dose. 
That will do.” 

Abraham knuckled his forehead, pausing to say to me in a hoarse 
whisper, which must have been perfectly audible to the captain, “A 
noice gemman, and no mistake.” 

“ I am going below,” said the captain when he was gone, “ to see 
after your accommodation. Will you sit here ?” addressing Helga, 
“ or will you go on deck for a few turns ? I fear you will find the air 
chilly.” 

“ I will go on deck with you, Hugh,” answered Helga. 

The captain ran his eye over her. 

“ You are without luggage,” said he, “ and, alas ! wanting in almost 
everything ; but if you will allow me ” — he broke off and went to 


192 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


his cabin, and before we could have found time to exchange a whis- 
per, returned with a very handsome, almost new, fur coat. 

“ Now, Miss Nielsen,” said he, “ you will suffer me to wrap you in 
this.” 

“ Indeed, my jacket will keep me warm,” she answered, with that 
same look of shrinking in her face I have before described. 

“ Nay, but wear it, Helga,” said I, anxious to meet the man, at all 
events, half-way in his kindness. “ It is a delightful coat — the very 
thing for the keen wind that is blowing on deck !” 

Had I offered to put it on for her she would at once have con- 
sented, but I could observe the recoil in her from the garment stretched 
in the captain’s hands, with his pale fat face smiling between his long 
whiskers over the top of it. On a sudden, however, she turned and 
suffered him to put the coat on her, which he did with great osten- 
tation of anxiety and a vast deal of smiling, and, as I could not help 
perceiving, with a deal more of lingering over the act than there was 
the least occasion for. 

“Wonderfully becoming, indeed!” he exclaimed; “and now to 
see that your cabin is comfortable.” 

He passed through the door and we mounted the companion-steps. 

The night was so dark that there was very little to be seen of the 
vessel. Her dim spaces of canvas made a mere pale whistling shadow 
of her as they floated, waving and bowing, in dim heaps through the 
obscurity. There was a frequent glancing of white water to wind- 
ward and a dampness as of spray in the wind, but the little bark 
tossed with dry decks over the brisk Atlantic heave, crushing the 
water off either bow into a dull light of seething, against which, 
when she stooped her head, the round of the forecastle showed like 
a segment of the shadow in an eclipse of the moon. The haze of 
the cabin lamp lay about the skylight, and the figure of the mate ap- 
peared in and vanished past it with monotonous regularity as he paced 
the short poop. There was a haze of light, too, about the binnacle- 
stand, with a sort of elusive stealing into it of the outline of the man 
at the helm. Forward the vessel lay in blackness. It was blowing 
what sailors call a top-gallant breeze, with, perhaps, more weight in it 
even than that ; but the squabness of this Light of the World prom- 
ised great stiffness, and though the wind had drawn some point or 
so forward while we were at table, the bark rose as stiff to it as 
though she 'had been under reefed top-sails. 

“ Will you take my arm, Helga?” said I. 

“ Let me first turn up the sleeves of this coat,” said she. 


On a sudden , however , she turned and suffered him to put the coat on her , which he did with great ostentation 

of anxiety and a vast deal of smiling 





































































































' 









































































. 






"r* • B F*™ 










THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


103 


I helped her to do this ; she then put her hand under my arm, and 
we started to walk the lee side of the deck as briskly as the swing of 
the planks would suffer. Scarcely were we in motion when the mate 
came down to us from the weather side. 

“ Beg pardon,” said he. “Won’t you and the lady walk to wind’ard ?” 

“Oh, we shall be in your way !” I answered. “It is a cold wind.” 

“ It is, sir.” 

“ But it promises a fair night,” said I. 

“ I hope so,” he exclaimed. “ Dirty weather don’t agree with dirty 
skins.” 

He turned on his heel and resumed his post on the weather side 
of the deck. 

“ Dirty skins mean Malays in that chief mate’s nautical dictionary,” 
said I. 

“ Hugh, how thankful I shall be when we are transferred to an- 
other ship !” 

“Aye, indeed ! but surely this is better than the lugger ?” 

“No ! I would rather be in the lugger.” 

“How, now, Helga?” cried I, “we are very well treated here. 
Surely, the captain has been all hospitality. No warm-hearted host 
ashore could do more. Why, here is he now at this moment superin- 
tending the arrangement of our cabins below to insure our com- 
fort !” 

“ I do not like him at all /” said she, in a tone which her slightly 
Danish accent rendered emphatic. 

“ I do not like his treatment of the men,” said I ; “but he is kind 
to us.” 

“ There is an unwholesome mind in his flabby face !” she exclaimed. 

I could not forbear a laugh at this strong language in the little 
creature. 

“And then his religion!” she continued. “Does a truly pious 
nature talk as he does? I can understand professional religionists 
intruding their calling upon strangers; but I have always found sin- 
cerity in matters of opinion modest and reserved — I mean among 
what you call laymen. What right has this man to force upon those 
poor fellows forward the food that they are forbidden by their faith 
to eat ?” 

“ Yes,” said I, “ that is a vile side of the man’s nature, I must own ; 
vile to you and me and to the poor Malays, I mean. But, surely, 
there must be sincerity, too, or why should he bother himself?” 

“ It may be meanness,” said she ; “ he wants to save his beef ; mean- 

13 


194 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


ness and that love of tyrannizing which is oftener to be found among 
the captains of your nation, Hugh, than mine.” 

“ Your nation !” said I, laughing. “ I claim you for Great Britain 
by virtue of your English speech. No pure Dane could talk your 
mother’s tongue as you do. Spite of what you say, though, I be- 
lieve the man sincere. Would he, situated as he is — two white men 
to eleven yellow-skins (for we and the boatmen must count ourselves 
out of it) — would he, I say, dare venture to arouse the passions — the 
religious passions — of a set of men who hail from the most treacher- 
ous community of people in the world, if he were not governed by 
some dream of converting them ? — a fancy that, were you to trans- 
plant it ashore, would be reckoned noble and of a scriptural and 
martyr-like greatness.” 

“ That may be,” she answered ; “ but he is going very wickedly 
to work, nevertheless, and it will not be his fault if those colored 
sailors do not dangerously mutiny long before he shall have per- 
suaded the most timid and doubting of them that pork is good 
to eat.” 

“ Yes,” said I, gravely ; for she spoke with a sort of impassioned 
seriousness that must have influenced me, even if I had not been of 
her mind. “ I, for one, should certainly fear the worst if he persists 
— and I don’t doubt he will persist, if Abraham and the other boat- 
men agree to remain with him ; for then it will be four to eleven — 
desperate odds, indeed, though, as an Englishman, he is bound to 
underrate the formidableness of anything colored. However,” said 
I, with a glance into the darkness over the side, “ do not doubt that 
we shall be transshipped long before any trouble happens. I shall 
endeavor to have a talk with Abraham before he decides. What he 
and Jacob then do, they will do with their eyes open.” 

As I spoke these words the captain came up the ladder and ap- 
proached us. 

“ Ha ! Miss Nielsen,” he cried, “ were not you wise to put on that 
warm coat ? All is ready below ; but still let me hope that you will 
change your mind and occupy Mr. Jones’s berth.” 

“ Thank you ; for the short time we shall remain in this ship the 
cabin you have been good enough to prepare will be all I shall re- 
quire,” she answered. 

He peered through the skylight to see the hour. 

“ Five minutes to eight,” he exclaimed. “ Mr. Jones.” The man 
crossed the deck. “ I have arranged,” said the captain, “ with the 
Deal boatman, Abraham Wise, to take charge of the bark during the 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


195 


middle watcb. It is an experiment, and I shall require to be up and 
down during those hours to make sure of him. Not that I distrust 
his capacities. Oh dear no ! From the vicious slipping of cables, 
merely for sordid purposes of hovelling to the noble art of navigat- 
ing a ship in a hurricane amid the shoals of the Strait of Dover, 
your Deal boatman is the most expert of men. But,” continued he, 
“ since I shall have to be up and down, as I have said, during the 
middle watch, I will ask you to keep charge of the deck till mid- 
night.” 

“Very good, sir,” said the mate, who appeared to me to have 
been on duty ever since the hour of our coming aboard. “ It will 
keep the round of the watches steady, sir. The port-watch comes 
on duty at eight bells.” 

“ Excellent !” exclaimed the captain. “ Thank you, Mr. Jones.” 

The mate stalked aft. 

“Mr. Tregarthen,” he added, “I observe that you wear a sou’- 
wester.” 

“ It is the head-gear I wore when I put off in the life-boat,” said 
I, “ and I am waiting to get home to exchange it.” 

“ No need, no need !” cried he ; “I have an excellent wide-awake 
below — not, indeed, perfectly new, but a very serviceable, clinging 
article for ocean use — which is entirely at your service.” 

“ You are all kindness.” 

“ Nay,” he exclaimed, in a voice of devotion, “ I believe I know 
my duty. Shall we linger here, Miss Nielsen, or would you prefer 
the shelter of the cabin ? At half-past eight Punmeamootty will 
place some hot-water, biscuit, and a little spirit upon the table. I 
fear I shall be at a loss to divert you.” 

“ Indeed not !” exclaimed Helga. 

The unconscious irony of this response must have disconcerted a 
less self-complacent man. 

“ I have a few volumes of an edifying kind, and a draught-board. 
My resources for amusing you, I fear, are limited to those things.” 

The sweep of the wind was bleaker than either of us had imagined, 
and, now that the captain had joined us, the deck possessed no 
temptation. We followed him into the cabin, where Helga hastily 
removed the coat, as though fearing the captain would help her. 
His first act was to produce the wide-awake he had spoken of. This 
was a very great convenience to me ; the sou’wester lay hot and 
heavy upon my head, and the sense of its extreme unsightliness 
added not a little to the discomfort it caused me. He looked at my 


196 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


sea-boots and then at his feet, and, with his head on one side, ex- 
claimed, in his most smiling manner, that he feared his shoes would 
prove too large for me, but that I was very welcome to the use of a 
pair of his slippers. These, also, I gratefully accepted, and withdrew 
to Mr. Jones’s berth to put them on, and the comfort of being thus 
shod after days of the weight and unwieldiness of my sea-boots, it 
would be impossible to express. 

“ I think we shall be able to make ourselves happy yet,” said the 
captain. “ Pray sit, Miss Nielsen. Do you smoke, Mr. Tregarthen ?” 

“ I do, indeed,” I answered, “ whenever I can get the chance.” 

He looked at Helga, who said to me, “ Pray, smoke here, Hugh, 
if the captain does not object. My father seldom had a pipe out of 
his mouth, and I was constantly in his cabin with him.” 

“You are truly obliging,” said the captain; and going to the 
locker in which he kept his rum, biscuits, and the like, he took out 
a cigar - box and handed me as well - flavored a Havana as ever I 
had smoked in my life. All this kindness and hospitality was, in- 
deed, overwhelming, and I returned some very lively thanks, to which 
he listened with a smile, afterwards, as his custom was, waving them 
aside with his hand. He next entered his cabin and returned with 
some half-dozen books, which he put before Helga. I leaned over 
her shoulder to look at them, and speedily recognized The Whole 
Duty of Man, The Pilgrim's Progress , Young's Night Thoughts , 
a volume by Jeremy Taylor, and the rest were of this sort of litera- 
ture. Helga opened a volume and seemed to read. When I turned 
to ask the captain a question about these books, I found him staring 
at her profile out of the corner of his eyes, while with his right hand 
he stroked his whisker meditatively. 

“ These are all very good books,” said I ; “ particularly the Pil- 
grim's Progress. 

“ Yes,” he answered, with a sigh ; “ works of that kind during my 
long periods of loneliness upon the high seas are my only solace, 
and lonely I am. All ship captains are more or less alone when en- 
gaged in their profession, but I am peculiarly so.” 

“ I should have thought the Church, captain, would have suited 
you better than the sea,” said I. 

“ Not the Church,” he answered. “ I am a Nonconformist, and 
Dissent is stamped upon a long pedigree. Pray light up, Mr. Tre- 
garthen.” 

He took his seat at the head of the table, put a match to his 
cigar, the sight of which between his thick lips considerably human- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


197 


ized him in my opinion, and clasping his pale, gouty-looking hands 
upon the table, leaned forward, furtively eying Helga over the top 
of his cigar, which forked up out of his mouth like the bowsprit of 
a ship. 

His conversation chiefly concerned himself, his past career, his 
antecedents, and so forth. He talked as one who wishes to stand 
well with his hearers. He spoke of a Lady Duckett as a connection 
of his on his mother’s side, and I observed that he paused on pro- 
nouncing the name. He told us that his mother had come from a 
very ancient family, that had been for centuries established in Cum- 
berland, but he was reticent on the subject of his father. He talked 
much of his daughter Judith’s loneliness at home, and said he 
grieved that she was without a companion — some one who would be 
equally dear to them both ; and as he said this he lay back in his 
chair in a very amplitude of waistcoat, with his eyes fixed on the 
upper deck and his whole posture suggestive of pensive thought. 

Well, thought I, this, to be sure, is a very strange sort of sea 
captain. I had met various skippers in my day, but none like this 
man. Even a trifling expletive would have been refreshing in his 
mouth. From time to time Helga glanced at him, but with an air 
of aversion that was not to be concealed from me, however self- 
complacency might blind him to it. She suddenly exclaimed, with 
almost startling inconsequentiality, 

“ You will be greatly obliging us, Captain Bunting, by giving or- 
ders to Mr. Jones or to Abraham to keep a lookout for ships sail- 
ing north during the night. We can never tell what passing vessel 
might not be willing to receive Mr. Tregarthen and me.” 

“ What ! in the darkness of night !” he exclaimed. “ How should 
we signal? How would you have me convey my desire to com- 
municate ?” 

“ By a blue light, or by burning a port-fire,” said Helga, shortly. 

“4*. I see you are a thorough sailor — you are not to be instruct- 
ed,” he cried, jocosely, wagging his whiskers at her. “ Think of a 
young lady being acquainted with the secret of night communica- 
tions at sea ! I fear — I fear we shall have to wait for the daylight. 
But what,” he exclaimed, unctuously, “ is the reason of this exceed- 
ing desire to return home ?” 

“ Ob, captain,” said I, “ home is home.” 

“And Mr. Tregarthen wishes to return to his mother,” said Helga. 

“ But, my dear young lady, your home is not in England, is it ?” 
he asked. 


198 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


She colored, faltered, and then answered, “ My home is in Den- 
mark.” 

“ You have lost your poor dear father,” said he, “ and I think I 
understood you to say, Mr. Tregarthen, that Miss Nielsen’s poor dear 
mother fell asleep some years since.” 

This was a guess on his part. I had no recollection whatever of 
having told him anything of the sort. 

“ I am an orphan,” exclaimed Helga, with a little hint of tears in 
her eyes, “ and — and, Captain Bunting, Mr. Tregarthen and I want 
to return home.” 

“ Captain Bunting will see to that, Helga,” said I, conceiving her 
somewhat too importunate in this direction. 

She answered me with a singularly wistful, anxious look. 

The conversation came to a pause through the entrance of Pun- 
meamootty. He arrived with a tray and hot-water, which he placed 
upon the table together with some glasses. The captain produced 
wine and a bottle of rum. Helga would take nothing, though no 
one could have been more hospitably pressing than Captain Bunting. 
For my part, I was glad to fill my glass, as much for the sake of the 
tonic of the spirit as for the desire to appear entirely sociable with 
this strange skipper. 

“ You can go forward,” he exclaimed to the Malay ; and the fel- 
low went gliding on serpentine legs, as it veritably seemed to me, 
out through the door. 

No further reference was made to the subject of our leaving the 
bark. The captain was giving us his experiences of the Deal boat- 
men, and relating an instance of heroic roguery on the part of the 
crew of a galley-punt, when a noise of thick, throaty, African -like 
yowling was heard sounding from somewhere forward, accompanied 
by one or two calls from the mate overhead. 

“ I expect Mr. Jones is taking in the foretop-gallant sail,” said the 
captain. “ Can it be necessary ? I will return shortly ;” and giv- 
ing Helga a convulsive bow, he pulled his wide-awake to his ears 
and went on deck. 

“ You look at me, Hugh,” said Helga, fixing her artless, sweet, 
and modest eyes upon me, “ when I speak to Captain Bunting as 
though I do wrong.” 

I answered gently, “ No. But is it not a little ungracious, Helga, 
to keepvon expressing your anxiety to get away, in the face of all 
this hospitable treatment and kindly anxiety to make us comfortable 
and happy while we remain ?” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 199 

She looked somewhat abashed. “ I wish he was not so kind,” she 
said. 

“ What is your misgiving ?” said I, inclining towards her to catch 
a better view of her face. 

“ I fear he will not make haste to transship us,” she answered. 

“ But why should he want to keep us ?” 

She glanced at me with ah instant surprise, emphasized by a brief 
parting of her lips that was yet not a smile. She made no answer, 
however. 

“ He will not want to keep us,” continued I, talking with the con- 
fidence of a young man to a girl whom he is protecting, and whose 
behavior assures him that she looks up to him and values his judg- 
ment. u We may prove very good company for a day or two, but 
the master of a vessel of this sort is a man who counts his sixpences, 
and he has no idea of maintaining us for a longer time than he can 
possibly help, depend upon it.” 

“ I hope so,” she answered. 

“ But you don’t think so,” said I, struck by her manner. 

She answered by speaking of his treatment of his crew, and we 
were upon this subject when he descended the cabin-ladder. 

“A small freshening of the wind,” said he, “and a trifling squall 
of rain.” There was no need for him to tell us this, for his long 
whiskers sparkled with water-drops and carried evidences of a brisk 
shower. “ The bark is now very snug, and there is nothing in sight,” 
said he, with a sort of half-humorous, reproachful significance in his 
way of turning to Helga. 

She smiled, as though by smiling she believed I should be pleased. 
The captain begged her to drink a little wine and eat a biscuit, and 
she consented. This §eemed to gratify him, and his behavior visi- 
bly warmed while he relighted his cigar, mixed himself another lit- 
tle dose, and resumed his chat about Beal boatmen and his expe- 
riences in the Downs. 


200 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


CHAPTER XVII. 

A CREW OF MALAYS. 

We sat chatting thus until something after nine. The comfort 
of this cabin after the lugger, the knowledge that Helga and I would 
each have a comfortable bed, comparatively speaking, to lie in, the 
conviction that our stay in the bark must be short, and that a very 
few hours might see us homeward bound, coupled with a sense of 
security such as never possessed me in the open lugger, not to men- 
tion the influence of my one pretty big tumbler of rum punch, had 
put me into a good-humor. 

“ Is not this better than the lugger ?” I said to Helga, as I mo- 
tioned with my cigar round the cabin, and pointed to the slippers 
upon my feet. “Think of my little windy bed under that boat’s 
deck, Helga, and recollect your black forepeak.” 

She seemed to acquiesce. The captain’s countenance was bland 
with gratification. 

“You tell me you have not travelled, Mr. Tregarthen?” said he. 

“I have not,” I replied. 

“But you would like to see the world? All young men should 
see the world. Does not the poet tell us that home-keeping youths 
have ever homely wits?” and here he harangued me for a little with 
commonplaces on the advantage of travel ; then, addressing Helga 
very smilingly, he said, “ You have seen much of the world?” 

“ Not very much,” she answered. 

“ South America ?” 

“ I was once at Rio,” she answered. “ I was also at Port Royal, in 
Jamaica, and have accompanied my father in short voyages to one 
or two Portuguese and Mediterranean ports.” 

“ Come ! There is extensive observation even in that,” said he ; 
“ in one so — in one whose years are still few. Did you ever visit 
Table Bay ?” 

She answered, “ No.” He smoked meditatively. 

“ Helga,” said I, “ you look tired. Would you like to go to your 
cabin ?” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


201 


“ I should, Hugh.” 

“ Well, I shall be glad to turn in myself, captain. Will you for- 
give our early retreat ?” 

“ By all means,” he exclaimed. “ Let me show you the cabins.” 

He went to the cuddy door and bawled for Punmeamootty. 
“ Light a lantern,” I heard him say, “ and bring it aft.” After a 
minute or two the steward made his appearance with a lantern swing- 
ing in his hand. The captain took it from him, and we passed out 
on to the quarter-deck where the hatch lay. After the warmth of 
the cuddy interior, the wind, chilled as it had been with the damp 
of the squall, seemed to blow with an edge of frost. The rays of 
the lantern danced in the blackness of the wet planks. The vessel 
was rolling slowly and plunging heavily, and there were many heavy, 
complaining, straining noises aloft amid the invisible spaces of can- 
vas swinging through the starless gloom. The cold, bleak roar of 
seething waters alongside recalled the raft, and there was a sort of 
sobbing all along the dusk close under either line of bulwarks. 

“ Let me help you through this little hatch, Miss Nielsen,” said 
the captain, dangling the lantern over it that we might see down the 
aperture. 

If she answered him I did not hear her ; she peered a moment, 
then put her foot over and vanished. The steps were perpendicu- 
lar — pieces of wood nailed to the bulkhead — yet she had descended 
this up-and-down ladder in an instant, and almost as she vanished 
was calling to me from below to say that she was safe. 

“ What extraordinary nimbleness in a young lady !” cried the cap- 
tain, in a voice of unaffected admiration. “What an exquisite sailor ! 
Now, Mr. Tregarthen !” 

I shuffled down, keeping a tight hold of the edge of the hatch, 
and felt my feet before there was occasion to let go with my hands. 
There was very little to be seen of this interior by the lantern light. 
It was the forepart of the steerage, so far as I could gather, with two 
rows of bulkheads forming a little corridor, at the extremity of which, 
aft, I could faintly distinguish the glimmering outlines of cases of 
light cargo. Forward of the hatch through which we had descended 
there stood a solid bulkhead, so there was nothing to be seen that 
way. The doors of the cabins opened out of the little corridor: 
they were mere pigeon-holes ; but then these ’tweendecks were very 
low, and while I stood erect I felt the crown of the wide-awake I 
wore brushing the planks. 

Never could I have imagined so much noise in a ship as was here 


202 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART; 


— the squeaking, the grinding, the groaning; the jar and shock of 
the rudder upon its post ; the thump of the seas outside, and the re- 
sponsive throbbing within ; the sullen, muffled roar of the Atlantic 
surge washing past — all these notes were blended into such a confu- 
sion of sounds as is not to be expressed. The lantern swayed in the 
captain’s hand, and the shadows at our feet sprang from side to side. 
There were shadows, too, all round about, wildly playing upon the 
walls and bulkheads of the vessel with a mopping and mowing of 
them that might have filled a lonely and unaccustomed soul down 
here with horrible imaginations of sea-monsters and ocean spectres. 

“ I heartily wish, Miss Nielsen,” cried the captain — and, in truth, 
he had need to exert his voice to be audible amid that bewildering 
clamor — “ that you had suffered me to provide you with better ac- 
commodation than this. Jones could have done very well down 
here. However, for to-night this will be your cabin. To-morrow I 
hope you will change your mind, and consent to sleep above.” 

So saying, he opened the foremost of the little doors on the port 
side. It was a mere hole, indeed, yet it somehow took the civilized 
look of an ordinary ship’s berth, from the round scuttle or thickly 
glazed port-hole which lay in an embrasure deep enough to comfort- 
ably warrant the thickness of the vessel’s side. Under this port-hole 
was a narrow bunk, and in it a bolster, and, as I might suppose, 
blankets, over which was spread a very handsome rug. I swiftly 
took note of one or two conveniences — a looking-glass, a wash-stand 
secured to the bulkhead (this piece of furniture, I made no doubt, 
had come direct from the captain’s cabin) ; there was also a little 
table, and upon it a comb and brush, and on the cabin deck was a 
square of carpet. 

“ Very poor quarters for you, Miss Nielsen,” said the captain, look- 
ing round, his nose and whiskers appearing twice as long in the fluct- 
uations of the lantern light and his fixed smile odd beyond words, 
with the tumbling of the shadows over his face. 

“ The cabin is very comfortable, and you are very kind,” exclaimed 
Helga. 

“ You are good to say so. I wish you a good-night and pleasant 
dreams.” 

He extended his hand, and held hers, I thought, rather longer 
than mere courtesy demanded. 

“That will be your cabin, Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, going to the 
door. 

_ I bade Helga good-night. It was hard to interpret her looks by 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


203 


that light, yet I fancied she had something to say, and bent my ear 
to her mouth; but, instead of speaking, she hurriedly passed her 
right-hand down my sleeve, by no means caressingly, but as though 
she desired to cleanse or dry her fingers. I looked at her, and she 
turned away. 

“ Good-night, Helga,” said I. 

“ Good-night, Hugh,” she answered. 

“You will find a bolt to your door, Miss Nielsen,” called the cap- 
tain. “ Oh, by-the-way,” he added, “ I do not mean that you shall 
undress in the dark. There is an opening over your door ; I will 
hang the lantern amidships here. It will shed light enough to see 
by, and in half an hour, if that will not be too soon, Pumneamootty 
will remove it. Good-night, Mr. Tregarthen.” 

He left me, after hanging up the lantern by a hook fixed in a 
beam amidships of the corridor. I waited until his figure disap- 
peared up the steps of the hatch, and then called to Helga. She 
heard me instantly, and cried, “ What is it, Hugh ?” 

“Did not you want to say something to me just now?” I ex- 
claimed. 

She opened the door and repeated, “ What is it, Hugh? I cannot 
hear you.” 

“ I thought you wished to speak to me just now,” said I, “ but 
were hindered by the captain’s presence.” 

“No, I have nothing to say,” she answered, looking very pale in 
the frolic of shadows made by the swinging lantern. 

“Why did you stroke down my arm? Was it a rebuke? Have 
I offended you ?” 

“ Oh, Hugh !” she cried ; then exclaimed : “ Could not you see 
what I meant ? I acted what I could not speak.” 

“ I do not understand,” said I. 

“ I wished to wipe off the grasp of that man’s hand,” she ex- 
claimed. 

“Poor wretch! Is he so soiling as all that, Helga? And yet 
how considerate he is ! I believe he has half denuded his own cabin 
for you.” 

“Well, good-night once more,” said she, and closed the door of 
her berth upon herself. 

I entered my cabin wondering like a fool. I could witness noth- 
ing but groundless aversion in her thoughts of this Captain Bunting, 
and felt vexed by her behavior ; for, first, I considered that, as in 
the lugger, so here — some days, aye, and even some weeks, might 


204 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


pass without providing us with the chance of being conveyed on 
board a homeward-bound ship. I do not say I believed this ; but it 
was a probable thing, and there was that degree of risk, therefore, 
in it. Then I reflected that it was in the power of Captain Bunting 
to render our stay in his vessel either as agreeable as he had the 
power to make it, or entirely uncomfortable and wretched by neg- 
lect, insolence, bad-humor, and the like. I therefore regarded Helga’s 
behavior as impolitic, and, not having the sense to see into it so as to 
arrive at a reason, I allowed it to tease me as a piece of silly, girlish 
caprice. 

This was in my mind as I entered my cabin. There was light 
enough to enable me to master the interior, and a glance around sat- 
isfied me that I was not to be so well used as Helga. There were a 
pair of blankets in the bunk, and an old pewter basin on the deck 
that was sliding to and fro with the motions of the vessel. This I 
ended by throwing the concern into the next cabin, which, so far as 
I could tell, was half full of bolts of canvas and odds and ends of 
gear, which emitted a very strong smell of tar. However, I was 
sleepier than I was sensible of while I used my legs, for I had no 
sooner stretched my length in the bunk, using the captain’s slippers 
rolled up in my monkey-jacket as a pillow, than I fell asleep, though 
five minutes before I should have believed that there was nothing 
in opium to have induced slumber in the face of the complicated 
noise which filled that interior. 

I slept heavily right through the night, and awoke at half-past 
seven. I saw Punmeamootty standing in the door, and believe I 
should not have awakened but for his being there and staring at me. 
I lay a minute before I could bring my mind to its bearings ; and I 
have some recollection of stupidly and drowsily imagining that I had 
been set ashore on an island by Captain Bunting, that I had taken 
refuge in a cave, and that the owner of that cave, a yellow wild man, 
had looked in, and, finding me there, was meditating how best to 
dispatch me. 

“Holloa?” said I. “What is it?” 

“ Y r ou wantchee water, sah?” said the man. 

“Yes,” said I, now in possession of all my wits. “You will find 
the basin belonging to this berth next door. A little cold water, if 
you please, and, if you can possibly manage it, Punmeamootty, a 
small bit of soap and a towel.” 

He withdrew, and in a few minutes returned with the articles I 
required. 


But de beautiful young lady, she sabbee navigation P 


























. 





































































































































THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


205 


“How is the weather?” said I, with a glance at the screwed-up 
port-hole, the glass of which lay as dusky with grime as the scuttle 
of a whaler that has been three years a-fishing. 

“Very proper wedder, sah,” he answered. 

“ Captain Bunting up ?” 

“No, sah.” 

“You will be glad to get to Cape Town, I dare say,” said I, scrub- 
bing at my face, and willing to talk since I noticed a disposition in 
the fellow to linger. “ Do you hail from that settlement, Punmea- 
mootty ?” 

“ No, sah ; I ’long to Ceylon,” he answered. 

“ How many Cingalese are there aboard ?” 

“ Tree,” he answered. 

“ Do the rest belong to the Cape ?” 

He shook his head and replied, “No; one Burmah man, anoder 
Penang, anoder Singapore — allee like that.” 

“ But your work in this ship ends at Cape Town.” 

“ Yes, sah,” he answered, swiftly and fiercely. 

“ Are you all Mahometans ?” 

“ Yes, allee Mussulmen.” 

I understood by allee that he meant all. He fastened his dusky 
eyes upon me with an expression of expectation that I would pursue 
the subject ; finding me silent, he looked behind him and then said, 
in a species of English that was not “ pigeon ” and that I can but 
feebly reproduce, though, to be sure, what was most remarkable in it 
came from the color it took through his intonation, and that glitter 
in his eyes which had made them visible to me in the dusk of the 
previous evening, “ You have been wrecked, sah ?” I nodded. “ But 
you sabbee nabigation ?” 

I could not restrain a laugh. “ I know nothing of navigation,” 
said I ; “ but I was not wrecked for the want of it, Punmeamootty.” 

“ But de beautiful young lady, she sabbee nabigation ?” said he, 
with an apologetic conciliatory grin that laid bare a wide range of 
his gleaming white teeth. 

“ How do you know that?” said I, struck by the question. 

“Me hear you tell de captain, sah.” 

“ Yes,” said I, “ I believe she can navigate a ship.” He tossed his 
hands and rolled up his eyes in ludicrous imitation, as I thought, of 
his captain’s behavior when he desired to express admiration. “ She 
beautiful young lady,” he exclaimed, “ and werry good — kind smile, 
and berry sorry for poor Mussulmen, sab,” 


206 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ I know what you mean, Punmearaootty,” said I. “ We are both 
very sorry, believe me ! The captain means well ” — the man’s teeth 
met in a sudden snap as I said this — “ the man means well,” I re- 
peated, eying him steadily, “but it is a mistaken kindness. The 
lady and I will endeavor to influence him ; though, at the same time, 
we trust to be out of the ship very soon, possibly too soon to be of 
any use. Anything in sight ?” 

“No, sah.” 

He loitered still, as though he had more to say. Finding me si- 
lent, he made an odd sort of obeisance and disappeared. 

Helga’s cabin door was shut. I listened, but could not collect 
amid the creaking noises that she was stirring within. It was likely 
she had passed an uneasy night and was now sleeping, and in that 
belief I gained the hatchway and mounted on deck. 

The first person I saw was Helga. She was talking to the two 
boatmen at the foot of the little poop-ladder, under the lee of the 
bulwarks, which were very nearly the height of a man. The decks 
were still dark with the swabbing-up of the brine with which they 
had been scoured. The galley-chimney was hospitably smoking. A 
group of the colored seamen lounged to leeward of the galley, with 
steaming pannikins and biscuits in their hands, and, as they ate and 
drank, they talked incessantly. The fellow named Nakier stood on 
the forecastle with his arms folded, persistently staring aft, as it 
seemed to me, at Helga and the boatmen. The sun was about half 
an hour above the horizon ; the sky was very delicately shaded with 
a frosty net-work of cloud, full of choice and tender tints, as though 
the sun were a prism flooding the heavens with many-colored radi- 
ance. Over the lee rail the sea was running in a fine, rich blue streaked 
with foam, and the wind was a moderate breeze from which the com- 
pletely clothed masts of the bark were leaning with the yards braced 
forward, for, so far as I could tell by the sun, the wind was about 
south-east. 

All these details my eye took in as I stepped out of the hatch. 
Helga advanced to meet me, and I held her hand. 

“You are looking very bonny this morning,” said I. “Your 
sleep has done you good. Good -morning, Abraham ; and how 
are you, Jacob? You two are the men I just now want to 
see.” 

“ Marning, Mr. Tregarthen,” exclaimed Abraham. “ How are you , 
sir? Don’t Miss Nielsen look first-rate? Why, she ain’t the same 
lady she was when we first fell in with ye.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


207 


“ It is true, Helga,” said I. “ Did Captain Bunting smuggle some 
cosmetics into your cabin, along with his wash-stand ?” 

“ Oh, do not joke, Hugh,” said she. “ Look around the ocean ; it 
is still bare.” 

“ I’ve bin a-telling Miss Nielsen,” exclaimed Abraham, “ that them 
colored chaps forrads are a-talking about her as if she were a diwinity.” 

“A angel,” said Jacob. 

“A diwinity,” said Abraham, looking at his mate. “The cove 
they calls boss — that there Nakier yonder, him as is a-looking at us as 
if his heart was agoing to bust— what d’ye think he says — aye, and 
in fust-class English, too? ‘ That there gal,’ says he, ‘ ain’t no English- 
woman. I’m glad to know it. She’s got too sweet a hoye for an 
Englishwoman.’ 4 What d’ye know about hoyes?’ says I. ‘English 
bad, bad,’ says he; ‘some good,’ here he holds up his thumb as if 
a-counting wan ; ‘ but many veree bad, veree bad,’ he says, says he, 
and here he holds up his fower fingers, like a little sprouting of o’er- 
ripe plantains, meaning fower to one, I allow.” 

“ It’s pork as is at the bottom o’ them feelin’s,” said Jacob. 

“Abraham,” said I, in a low voice, for I had no desire to be over- 
heard by the mate, who came and went at the rim of the poop over- 
head in his walk from the taffrail to the break of the deck, “ before 
you accept Captain Bunting’s offer ” — 

“ I have accepted it, Mr. Tregarthen,” he interrupted. 

“ When ?” 

“ Last noight, or call it this marning. He was up and down while 
I kep’ a lookout, and wanst he says to me, ‘Are you agreeable, Vise?’ 
says he ; and I says, ‘ Yes, sir,’ having talked the matter o’er with 
Jacob.” 

“ I hope the pair of you have thought the matter well out,” said I, 
with a glance at the captain’s cabin, from which, however, we stood 
too far to be audible to him in it. “ I saw Nakier haranguing you 
yesterday afternoon, and, though you told me you didn’t quite under- 
stand him, yet surely by this time you will have seen enough to make 
you guess that if the captain insists on forcing pork down those men’s 
throats his ship is not going to continue a floating Garden of Eden !” 

“ Whoy, that may be roight enough,” answered Abraham ; “ but 
them colored chaps’ grievances ha’n’t got nothen to do with Jacob 
an’ me. What I considered is this : here am I offered fower pound 
a month, and there’s Jacob, who’s to go upon the articles for three 
pound ; that’ll be seven pound ’twixt us tew men. Ain’t that money 
good enough for the likes of us, Mr. Tregarthen ? Where’s the Airly 


208 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


Mam ? Where’s my fifteen pound vorth o’ property ? Where’s Ja- 
cob’s height pound vorth — aye, every farden of height pound ?” he 
exclaimed, looking at Jacob, who confirmed his assurance with a pro- 
digious nod. “As to them leather-colored covies,” he continued, 
with a contemptuous look forwards, then pausing, he cried out, 
“’Soides, whoy shouldn't they eat pork? If it’s good enough for 
me and Jacob, ain’t it good enough for the loikes o’ such a poor little 
parcel o’ sickly flesh as that there Nakier and his mates ?” 

“ It is a question of religion with them,” said I. 

“Religion!” grumbled Jacob. “Religion, Mr. Tregarthen, don’t 
lie here, sir,” putting his hand upon his waistcoat, “ but here,” point- 
ing with a tarry-looking finger to where he imagined his heart was. 
“ There hain’t no religion in dishes. I’ve heerd of chaps a-preaching 
in tubs, but I never heered of religion lying pickled in a cask. Don’t 
you let them chaps gammon you, sir. ’Tain’t pork; it’s a detar- 
mination to find fault.” 

“ But have they not said enough in your hearing to persuade you 
they are in earnest ?” said Helga. 

“ Why, ye see, lady,” answered Abraham, “ that their language is 
a sort o’ conversation which there’s ne’er a man along Deal beach as 
has ever been eddicated in, howe’er it may be along o’ your part o’ 
the coast, Mr. Tregarthen. What they says among themselves I 
don’t onderstand.” 

“ But have they not complained to you,” persisted Helga, gently, 
“ of being obliged by the captain either to go without food every 
other day or to eat meat that is forbidden to them by their religion ?” 

“ That there Nakier,” replied Abraham, “ spun a long yarn yester- 
day to Jacob and me whilst we lay agin the galley feeling werry ordi- 
nary — werry ordinary, indeed — arter that there bad job of the Airly 
Mam ; but he talked so fast, and so soft, tew, that all that I could 
tell ye of his yarn, Miss, is that he and his mates don’t fancy them- 
selves as comfortable as they might be.” 

I said quietly, for Mr. Jones had come to a halt at the rail above us, 
“ Well, Abraham, my advice to you both is, look about you a little 
while longer before you allow your names to be put upon the articles 
of this ship.” 

At that moment the captain came out of the door of the cuddy, 
and the two boatmen, with a flourish of their hands to Helga, went 
rolling forward. He came up to us, all smiles and politeness. It was 
easy to see that he had taken some trouble in dressing himself; his 
whiskers were carefully brushed ; he wore a new purple-satin scarf ; 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


209 


his ample black waistcoat hinted that it belonged to his Sunday suit, 
or “ best things,” as servants call it ; his boots were well polished ; 
he showed an abundance of white cuff; and his wide-awake sat 
somewhat jauntily upon his head. His two or three chins went roll- 
ing and disappearing like a ground swell between the opening of a 
pair of tall starched collars — an unusual embellishment, I should have 
imagined, at sea, where starch is as scarce as newspapers. He hoped 
Helga had slept well ; he only trusted that the noises of straining 
and creaking below had not disturbed her. She must really change 
her mind and occupy Mr. Jones’s cabin. After shaking me by the 
hand, he seemed to forget that I stood by, so busy was he in his 
attention to Helga. He asked her to step on to the poop or upper 
deck. 

“These planks are not yet dry,” said he; “and, besides,” he went 
on, smiling always, “ your proper place, my dear young lady, is aft, 
where there is, at all events, seclusion, though, alas ! I am unable to 
offer you the elegances and luxuries of an ocean mail steamer.” 

We mounted the ladder, and he came to a stand to survey the sea. 

“ What a mighty waste, is it not, Miss Nielsen ? Nothing in sight. 
All hopelessly sterile. But it is not for me to complain,” he added, 
significantly. 

He then called to Mr. Jones, and all very blandly, with the gentle- 
manly airs and graces which one associates with the counter, he asked 
him how the weather had been since eight bells, if any vessels had 
been sighted, and so forth, talking with a marked reference to Helga 
being near and listening to him. 

Mr. Jones, with his purple pimple of a nose of the shape of a wom- 
an’s thimble standing out from the middle of his pale face, with a 
small but extraordinary light-blue eye twinkling on either side of it 
under straw-colored lashes and eyebrows resembling oakum, listened 
to and addressed the captain with the utmost degree of respect. 
There was an air of shabbiness and of hard usage about his apparel 
that bespoke him a man whose locker was not likely to be overbur- 
dened with shot. His walk was something of a shamble, that was 
heightened by the loose pair of old carpet slippers he wore, and by the 
frayed heels of his breeches. His age was probably thirty. He im- 
pressed me as a man whose appearance would tell against him among 
owners and ship-masters, who would therefore obtain a berth with 
difficulty, but who when once in possession would hold on tight by 
all possible strenuous effort of fawning, of agreeing, of submissively 
undertaking more work than a captain had a right to put him to, 

14 


210 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


While we thus stood I sent a look around the little Light of the 
World to see what sort of a ship we were aboard of, for down to 
this time I had scarcely had an opportunity of inspecting her. She 
was an old vessel, probably forty years old. This I might have 
guessed from the existence of the cabins in the steerage; but her 
beam and the roundness of her bows and a universal worn air, that 
answered to the wrinkles upon the human countenance, likewise 
spoke her age very plainly. Her fittings were of the homeliest; 
there was no brasswork here to glitter upon the eye ; her deck fur- 
niture was, indeed, as coarse and plain as a smack’s, with a look about 
the skylight, about the companion-hatch cover, about the drumhead 
of the little quarter-deck capstan, and about the line of the poop and 
bulwark-rail, as though they had been used over and over again by 
generations of seamen for cutting up plug tobacco upon. She had 
a very short forecastle-deck forward, under which you saw the heel 
of the bowsprit and the heaped mass of windlass; but the men’s 
sleeping quarters were in the deck beneath, to which access was to 
be had only by what is commonly called a fore-scuttle — that is to 
say, a little hatch with a cover to it, which could be bolted and pad- 
locked at will. Abaft the galley lay the long-boat, a squab tub of a 
fabric like the mother whose daughter she was. It rested in chocks, 
on its keel, and was lashed to bolts in the deck. There were some 
spare booms secured on top of it, but the boat’s one use now was as 
a receptacle for poultry for the captain’s table. On either side of 
the poop hung a quarter-boat in davits — plain structures, sharp-end- 
ed like whaling-boats. Add a few details, such as a scuttle-butt for 
holding fresh -water for the crew to drink from; a harness -cask 
against the cuddy-front for storing the salted meats for current use ; 
the square of the main-hatch tarpaulined and battened down ; and 
then the yards mounting the masts and rising from courses to royals, 
spars and gear looking as old as the rest of the ship, though the sails 
seemed new, and shone very white as the wind swelled their breasts 
to the sun, and you have as good a picture as I can put before you 
of this Light of the World that was bearing Helga and me hour by 
hour farther and deeper into the heart of the great Atlantic, and that 
was also to be the theatre of one of the strangest and wildest of the 
events which furnished forth this trying and desperate passage of 
my life. 

Captain Bunting moved away with an invitation in his manner to 
Helga to walk. I lingered to exchange a word with the mate from 
the mere desire to be civil. Helga called me with her eyes to aq- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


211 


company her, then, hearing me speak to Mr. Jones, she joined the 
captain and paced by his side. I spied him making an angle of his 
arm for her to take, but she looked away, and he let fall his hand, 

“ If Abraham Wise,” said I, “ agrees to sail with you, Mr, Jones, 
you will have a very likely, lively fellow to relieve you in keeping 
watch.” 

“Yes; he seems a good man. It is a treat to see a white face 
knocking about this vessel’s deck,” he answered, in a spiritless way, 
as though he found little to interest him when his captain’s back was 
turned, 

“You certainly have a very odd-looking crew,” said I. “I be- 
lieve I should not have the courage to send myself adrift along with 
one white man only aboard a craft full of Malay.” 

“ There were three of us,” he answered, “ but Winstanley disap- 
peared shortly after we had sailed.” 

As he spoke, Nakier, on the forecastle, struck a little silver-toned 
bell eight times, signifying eight o’clock. 

“Who is that copper- colored, scowling- looking fellow at the 
wheel ?” I asked, indicating the man who had been at the helm when 
Helga and I came aboard on the preceding day, 

“His name is Ong Kew Ho,” he answered. “ A rare beauty, ain’t 
he ?” he added, with a little life coming into his eyes. “ His face 
looks rotten with ripeness. Sorry to say he’s in my watch, and he’s 
the one of them all that I never feel very easy with of a dark night 
when he’s where he is now and I’m alone here.” 

“But the looks of those Asiatic folk don’t always express their 
minds,” said I. “ I remember boarding a ship off the town I belong 
to and noticing among the crew the most hideous, savage -looking 
creature it would be possible to imagine ; eyes asquint, a flat nose 
with nostrils going to either cheek, black hair wriggling past his ears 
like snakes, and a mouth like a terrible wound ; indeed, he is not to 
be described ; yet the captain assured me that he was the gentlest, 
best-behaved man he had ever had under him, and the one favorite 
of the crew.” 

“He wasn’t a Malay,” said Mr. Jones, dryly. 

“ The captain didn’t know his country,” said I. 

Here Abraham arrived to take charge of the deck. He had pol- 
ished himself up to the best of his ability, and mounted the ladder 
with an air of importance. He took a slow, merchant-sailor-like, 
deep-sea survey of the horizon, following on with an equally delib- 
erate gaze aloft at the canvas, then knuckled his brow to Mr. Jones, 


212 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


who gave him the course and exchanged a few jvords with him, and 
immediately after left the deck, howling out an irrepressible yawn as 
he descended the ladder. 

It was not for me to engage Abraham in conversation. He was 
now on duty, and I understood the sea-discipline well enough to know 
that he must be left alone. I thereupon joined Helga and Captain 
Bunting, not a little amused secretly by the quarter-deck strut the 
worthy boatman put on, by the knowing, consequential expression 
in his eyes as they met in a squint in the compass-bowl, by his slow 
look at the sea over the taffrail, and the twist in his pursed-up lips as 
he went rolling forward to the break of the poop, viewing the sails 
as though anxious to find something wrong, that he might give an 
order and prove his zeal. 

At half-past eight Punmeamootty rang a little bell in the cabin, 
and we went down to breakfast. The repast, it was to be easily seen, 
was the best the ship’s larder could furnish, and in excess of what 
was commonly placed upon the table. There was a good ham, there 
was a piece of ship’s corned-beef, and I recollect a jar of marmalade, 
some white biscuit, and a pot of hot coffee. The colored steward 
waited nimbly, with a singular swiftness and eagerness of manner 
when attending to Helga, at whom I would catch him furtively gaz- 
ing askant, with an expression in his fiery, dusky eyes that was more 
of wonder and respect, I thought, than of admiration. At times he 
would send a sideways look at the captain that put the fancy of a 
flourished knife into one’s head, so keen and sudden and gleaming 
was it. Mr. Jones had apparently breakfasted and withdrawn to his 
cabin, thankful, no doubt, for a chance to stretch his legs upon a 
mattress. 

In the course of the meal Helga inquired the situation of the 
ship. 

“ We are, as nearly as possible,” answered the captain, “ on the 
latitude of the island of Madeira, and, roundly speaking, some hun- 
dred and twenty miles to the eastward of it. But you know how to 
take an observation of the sun, Mr. Tregarthen informed me. I have 
a spare sextant, and at noon you and I will together find out the lat- 
itude and longitude. I should very well like to have my reckoning 
confirmed by you,” and he leaned towards her, and smiled and looked 
at her. 

She colored, and said that, though her father had taught her navi- 
gation, her calculations could not be depended upon. But for her 
wish to please me, I believe she would not have troubled herself to 


THE ROMANCE OP A MONTH. 213 

give him that answer, but coldly proceeded with the question she 
now put: 

“ Since we are so close to Madeira, Captain Bunting, would it be 
inconveniencing you to sail your bark to that island, where we are 
sure to find a steamer to carry us home ?” 

He softly shook his head with an expression of bland concern, 
while he sentimentally lifted his eyes to the tell-tale compass above 
his head. 

“You ask too much, Helga,” said I. “You must know that the 
deviation of a ship from her course may vitiate her policy of insur- 
ance, should disaster follow.” 

“ Just so !” exclaimed the captain, with a thankful and smiling in- 
clination of his head at me. 

“ Besides, Helga,” said I, gently, “ supposing, on our arrival at Ma- 
deira, we should find no steamer going to England for some days, 
what should we do ? ' There are no houses of charity on that island 
of Portuguese beggars, I fear; and Captain Bunting may readily 
guess how it happens that I left my purse at home.” 

“Just so,” he repeated, giving me such another nod as he had be- 
fore bestowed. 

The subject dropped. The captain made some remark about the 
part of the ocean we were in being abundantly navigated by home- 
ward-bound craft, then talked of other matters; but whatever he 
said, though directly addressed to me, seemed to my ear to be spoken 
for the girl, as though, indeed, were she absent he would talk little or 
in another strain. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

BUNTING’S FORECASTLE FARE. 

When breakfast was ended, Helga left the table to go to her cabin, 
Punmeamootty began to clear away the things. 

“You can go forward,” said the captain. “ I will call you when 
I want you.” I was about to rise. “ A minute, Mr. Tregarthen,** 
he exclaimed. He lay back in his chair, stroking first one whisker 
and then the other, with his eyes thoughtfully surveying the upper 
deck, at which he smiled as though elated by some fine, happy fancies, 
He hung in the wind in this posture for a little while, then inclined 


214 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


himself with a confidential air towards me, clasping his fat fingers 
upon the table. 

“ Miss Nielsen,” said he, softly, “ is an exceedingly attractive young 
lady.” 

“ She is a good, brave girl,” said I, “ and pretty, too.” 

“She calls you Hugh, and you call her Helga — Helga! a very 
noble, stirring name — quite like the blast of a trumpet, with some- 
thing biblical about it, too, though I do not know that it occurs in 
Holy Writ. Pray, forgive me. This familiar interchange of names 
suggests that there may be more between you than exactly meets the 
eye, as the poet observes.” 

“ No !” I answered, with a laugh that was made short by surprise. 
“ If you mean to ask whether we are sweethearts, my answer is — No. 
We met for the first time on the twenty-first of this month, and 
since then our experiences have been of a sort to forbid any kind of 
emotion short of a profound desire to get home.” 

“ Home !” said he ; “ but her home is in Denmark ?” 

“ Her father, as he lay dying, asked me to take charge of her and 
see her safe to Holding, where I believe she has friends,” I answered, 
not choosing to hint at the little half-matured programme for her 
that was in my mind. 

“ She is an orphan,” said he ; “ but she has friends, you say ?” 

“ I believe so,” I answered, scarcely yet able to guess at the man’s 
meaning. 

“You have known her since the twenty-first,” he exclaimed; “to- 
day is the thirty-first — just ten days. Well, in that time a shrewd 
young gentleman like you will have observed much of her character. 
I may take it,” said he, peering as closely into my face as our re- 
spective positions at the table would suffer, “ that you consider her 
a thoroughly religious young woman ?” 

“ Why, yes, I should think so,” I answered, not suffering my aston- 
ishment to hinder me from being as civil and conciliatory as possible 
to this man, who, in a sense, was our deliverer, and who, as our host, 
was treating us with great kindness and courtesy. 

“ I will not,” said he, “ inquire her disposition. She impresses me 
as a very sweet young person. Her manners are genteel. She talks 
with an educated accent, and I should say her lamented father did not 
stint his purse in training her.” 

I looked at him, merely wondering what he would say next. 

“ It is, at all events, satisfactory to kuow,” said he, lying back in 
his chair again, “that there is nothing between you — outside, I mean, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


215 


the friendship which the very peculiar circumstances under which you 
met would naturally excite.” He lay silent awhile, smiling. “ May 
I take it,” said he, “ that she has been left penniless ?” 

“ I fear it is so,” I replied. 

He meditated afresh. 

“ Do you think,” said he, “ you could induce her to accompany 
you in my ship to the Cape ?” 

“ No,” cried I, starting, “ I could not induce her, indeed, and for 
a very good reason : I could not induce myself.” 

“ But why ?” he exclaimed, in his oiliest tone. “ Why decline to 
see the great world, the wonders of this noble fabric of universe, when 
the opportunity comes to you? You shall be my guests; in short, 
Mr. Tregarthen, the round voyage sha’n’t cost you a penny !” 

“You are very good!” I exclaimed; “but I have left my mother 
alone at home. I am her only child, and she is a widow, and my 
desire is to return quickly, that she may be spared unnecessary anxiety 
and grief.” 

“ A very proper and natural sentiment, pleasingly expressed,” said 
he ; “ yet I do. not quite gather how your desire to return to your 
mother concerns Helga — I should say, Miss Nielsen !” 

I believe he would have paused at “ Helga ” and not have added 
“Miss Nielsen” but for the look he saw in my face. Yet, stirred 
as my temper was by this half-hearted stroke of impertinent famili- 
arity in the man, I took care that there should be no further betrayal 
of my feelings than what might be visible in my looks. 

“ Miss Nielsen wishes to return with me to my mother’s house,” 
said I, quietly ; “ you were good enough to assure us that there should 
be no delay.” 

“You only arrived yesterday!” he exclaimed, “ and down to this 
moment we have sighted nothing. But why do you suppose,” added 
he, “ that Miss Nielsen is not to be tempted into making the round 
voyage with me in this bark ?” 

“ She must speak for herself,” said I, still perfectly cool, and no 
longer in doubt as to how the land lay with this gentleman. 

“ You have no claim upon her, Mr. Tregarthen ?” said he, with one 
of his blandest smiles. 

“ No claim whatever,” said I, “ outside the obligation imposed 
upon me by her dying father. I am her protector, by his request, 
until I land her safely among her friends in Denmark.” 

“Just so,” said he; “but it might happen — it might just possibly 
happen,” he continued, letting his head fall on one side and stroking 




216 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


his whiskers, “ that circumstances may arise to render her return to 
Denmark under your protection unnecessary.” 

I looked at him, feigning not to understand. 

“ Now, Mr. Tregarthen, see here,” said he, and his blandness yielded 
for an instant to the habitual professional peremptoriness of the ship- 
master; “I am extremely desirous of making Miss Nielsen’s better 
acquaintance, and I am also much in earnest in wishing that she should 
get to know my character very well. This cannot be done in a few 
hours, nor, indeed, in a few days. You will immensely oblige me by 
coaxing the young lady to remain in this vessel. There is nothing 
between you. . . . Just so. She is an orphan, and there is reason to 
fear, from what you tell me, comparatively speaking, friendless. We 
must all of us desire the prosperity of so sweet and amiable a female. 
It may happen,” he exclaimed, with a singularly deep smile, “ that 
before many days have passed she will consent to bid you farewell 
and to continue the voyage alone with me.” 

I opened my eyes at him, but said nothing. 

“A few days more or less of absence from your home,” he con* 
tinued, “ cannot greatly signify to you. We have a right to hope, 
seeing how virtuously, honorably, and heroically you have behaved, 
that Providence is taking that care of your dear mother which, let us 
not doubt, you punctually, morning and night, offer up your prayers 
for. But a few days may make a vast difference in Miss Nielsen’s 
future ; and, having regard to the solemn obligation her dying father 
imposed upon you, it should be a point of duty with you, Mr. Tre- 
garthen, to advance her interests, however inconvenienced you may 
be by doing so.” 

Happily, his long-windedness gave me leisure to think. I could 
have answered him hotly; I could have given him the truth very 
nakedly ; I could have told him that his words were making me un- 
derstand there was more in my heart for Helga than I had been at 
all conscious of twenty minutes before. But every instinct in me 
cried, “Beware !” to the troop of emotions hurrying through my 
mind, and I continued to eye him coolly, and to speak with a well- 
simulated carelessness. 

“ I presume, Captain Bunting,” said I, “ that if Miss Nielsen 
persists in her wish to leave your ship you will not hinder 
her ?” 

“ That will be the wish I desire to extinguish,” said he ; “I believe 
it may be done.” 

“You will please remember,” said I, “that Miss Nielsen is totally 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 217 

unequipped even for a week or two of travel by sea, let alone a round 
voyage that must run into months.” 

“ I understand you,” he answered, motioning with his hand ; “ but 
the difficulty is easily met. The Canary Islands are not far off. Santa 
Cruz will supply all her requirements. My purse is wholly at her 
service. And with regard to yourself, Mr. Tregarthen, I should be 
happy to advance you any sum in moderation, to enable you to satisfy 
your few wants.” 

“You are very good,” said I; “but I am afraid we shall have to 
get you to transship us at the first opportunity.” 

A shadow of temper that was not a frown, and therefore I do not 
know well how to convey it, penetrated his smile. 

“You will think over it,” said he. “Time does not press. Yet 
we shall not find another port so convenient as Santa Cruz.” 

As he pronounced these words, Helga entered the cuddy. He in- 
stantly rose, bowing to her and smiling, but said no more than that 
he hoped to shortly join us on deck. He then entered his berth. 

Helga approached me close, and studied my face for a moment or 
two in silence with her soft eyes. 

“ What is the matter, Hugh ?” she asked. 

I looked at her anxiously and earnestly, not knowing as yet how 
to answer her, whether to conceal or to tell her what had passed. I 
was more astonished than irritated, and more worried and perplexed 
than either. Here was an entanglement that might vastly amuse an 
audience in a comedy, but that, in its reality, was about as grave and 
perilous a complication as could befall us. With the velocity of 
thought, even while the girl’s eyes were resting on mine and she was 
awaiting my reply, I reflected — first, that we were in the power of 
this captain, in respect, I mean, of his detention of us, while his ves- 
sel remained at sea; next, that he had fallen in love with Helga ; that 
he meant to win her if he could ; that his self-complacency would 
render him profoundly hopeful, and that he would go on keeping us 
on board his craft under one pretext or another in the conviction that 
his chance lay in time, with the further help that would come to him 
out of her condition as an orphan and penniless. 

“What is it, Hugh ?” 

The sudden, brave, determined look that entered the girl’s face, 
as though she had scented a danger and had girded her spirit for it, 
determined me to give her the truth. 

“ Come on deck !” said I. 

I took her hand, and we went up the little companion-steps. 


218 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


Abraham was standing near the wheel, exchanging a word or two 
with the yellow-skin who had replaced the fierce-faced creature of 
the earlier morning. There was warmth in the sun, and the sky was 
a fine, clear blue dome, here and there freckled by remains of the 
interlacery of cloud which had settled away into the west and north. 
The breeze was a soft, caressing air, with a hint of tropic breath and 
of the equatorial sea-perfume in it ; and the round-bowed bark was 
sliding along at some four or five miles an hour, with a simmering 
noise of broken waters at her side. There was nothing in sight. 
Two or three copper-colored men squatted, with palms and needles 
in their hands, upon a sail stretched along the waist ; Nakier, on the 
forecastle - head, was standing, with a yellow paw at the side of his 
mouth, calling instructions in some Asiatic tongue to one of the crew 
in the foretop-mast cross-trees. I caught sight of Jacob, who was 
off duty, leaning near the galley door, apparently conversing with 
some man within. He nodded often, with an occasional sort of 
pooh-poohing flourish of his hand, puffing leisurely, and enjoying the 
sunshine. On catching sight of us he saluted with a flourish of his 
fist. This was the little picture of the bark as I remember it on 
stepping on deck with Helga that morning. 

I took her to leeward, near the quarter-boat, out of hearing of 
Abraham and the helmsman. 

“ Now, what is it, Hugh ?” said she. 

“ Why should you suppose there is anything wrong, Helga ?” 

“ I see worry in your face.” 

“Well,” said I, “here is exactly how matters stand;” and with 
that I gave her, as best my memory could, every sentence of the cap- 
tain’s conversation. She blushed and turned pale and blushed again ; 
the shadows of a dozen emotions passed over her face in swift suc- 
cession, and strongest among them was consternation. 

“You were vexed with me for not being civil enough to him, 
Hugh,” said she, “ and you would not understand that the civiler I 
was the worse it might be with us. Such a conceited, silly creature 
would easily mistake.” 

“ Could I imagine that he was in love with you ?” 

“ Oh, do not say that again !” she cried, with disgust in her man- 
ner, while she made as though to stop her ears. 

“ How could I guess ?” I went on. “ His behavior seemed to me 
full of benevolence, hospitality, gratification at having us to talk to, 
with courtesy marked to you as a girl delivered from shipwreck and 
the hardships of the ocean.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


219 


“Will no ship come?” she cried, looking round the sea. “The 
thought of remaining in this vessel, of having to disguise my feel- 
ings from that man for policy’s sake, of being forced to sit in his 
company and listen to him, and watch his smile and receive his at- 
tentions and compliments, grows now intolerable to me, Hugh !” and 
she brought her foot with a little stamp to the deck. 

“Did you know you were so fascinating?” said I, looking at her. 
“ In less than a day you have brought this pale, stout captain to your 
feet — in less than a day ! Why, your charms have the potency of 
Prospero’s magic. In ‘The Tempest,’ Ferdinand and Miranda fall 
deeply in love, plight their troth, bill and coo, and gamble at chess, 
all within three hours. This little ship promises to be the theatre of 
another 4 Tempest,’ I fear.” 

“Why did not you make him understand, resolutely compel him 
to understand, that it is our intention to return to England in the 
first ship?” she exclaimed, with a glow in her blue eyes, a trace of 
color in her cheeks, and a tremor in her nostrils. 

“Bluntness will not do, Helga. We must not convert this man 
into an enemy.” 

“ But he should be made to know that we mean to go home, and 
that his ideas” — She broke off, turning scarlet on a sudden, and 
looked down over the rail at the sea with a gleam of her white teeth 
showing upon the under-lip she bit. 

“ Helga,” said I, gently touching her hand, “ you are a better sail- 
or than I. What is to be done ?” 

She confronted me afresh, her blue eyes darkened by the sup- 
pressed tears which lay close to them. 

“ Let us,” I continued, “ look this matter boldly in the face. He 
is in love with you.” For a second time she stamped her foot and 
bit her lip. “ I must say it, for there lies the difficulty. He hopes 
by keeping you on board to get you to like, and then, perhaps, lis- 
ten to him. He will keep me, too, for the present — not because he 
is at all desirous of my company, but because he supposes that in 
your present mood, or rather attitude, of mind you would not stay 
without me, or at least alone with him.” 

Her whole glowing countenance breathed a vehement No ! 

“ He need not speak passing ships unless he chooses to do so,” I 
went on ; “ and I don’t doubt he has no intention of speaking pass- 
ing ships. What then ? How are we to get home ?” 

The expression on her face softened to a passage of earnest 
thought. 


220 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ We must induce him to steer his ship to Santa Cruz,” she ex- 
claimed. 

“You will have to act a part, then,” said I, after pausing to con- 
sider. “ He is no fool. Can you persuade him that you are in ear-' 
nest in wishing to go to the Cape in this ship ? If not, his long nose 
will sniff the stratagem, and Santa Cruz in a few days be remoter 
than it now is.” 

She reflected, and exclaimed, “ I must act a part if we are to get 
away from this vessel. What better chance have we than Santa 
Cruz? We must go ashore to make our purchases, and when ashore 
we would stop there. Yet what a degrading, what a ridiculous, what 
a wretched position to be in !” she cried. “ I would make myself 
hideous with my nails to get you safely home to your mother, Hugh!” 
and, with a dramatic gesture I should have deemed the little, gentle 
creature incapable of, she put her fingers to her cheeks. 

Abraham was now patrolling the deck to windward, casting his 
eyes with a look of importance up at the sails, and then directing 
them at the sea-line. He would, to be sure, find nothing to excite 
his curiosity in this subdued chat between Helga and me to leeward. 

I had a mind to call him and explain our new and astonishing situ- 
ation; then thought, “No; let us mature some scheme first; he will 
help us better then, if he is able to help at all.” I leaned against 
the rail with folded arms, deeply considering. Helga kept her gaze 
upon me. 

“ We should not scheme as though Captain Bunting were a vil- 
lain,” said I. 

“ He is a villain to his men,” she answered. 

“ He is no villain to us, Helga. What we do not like in him is 
his admiration of you. But this does not make a rascal of him.” 

“ He promised to transfer us to the first ship that passed,” said 
she. 

“ Shall you be well advised in acting a part?” I exclaimed. “You 
are too frank, of too sweetly genuine a nature ; you could not act ; 
you could not deceive him,” said I, shaking my head. 

The gratification my words gave her rose to her face in a little 
smile, that stayed for a moment like a light there. 

“How frank and sweet I. am I do not know,” said she, artlessly; 
“ but I love your praise, Hugh.” 

“ Madeira is yonder,” said I, nodding into the westward, “ some 
hundred odd miles distant, according to our friend’s reckoning. If 
that be so, the Canaries must be within easy reach of two or three 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


221 


days, even at this dull pace. In fact, by to-morrow afternoon we 
could be having the Peak of Teneriffe blue in the heavens over the 
bow. We could not make the captain believe, in that time, that we, 
who have been consumed with anxiety to return to England, have 
suddenly changed our mind, and are willing to sail in his ship to 
wherever he may be bound. He would say to himself, ‘They want 
me to steer for Santa Cruz, where they will go ashore and leave me.’ ” 

“ Yes, that is likely,” said the girl. 

“We must not speculate and plan as though he were a villain,” I 
repeated. “ I believe the safe course will be to behave as though we 
did not doubt he will transfer us when the chance offers, and we 
must be ceaseless in our expressions of anxiety to get home.” 

“ That will be genuine in us,” said Helga, “ and I would rather 
act so. He will soon discover,” added she, coloring, “that he is mere- 
ly increasing the expenses of the voyage by detaining us.” 

“ He is not a rascal,” said I ; “he means very honestly; he wishes 
to make you his wife.” She raised her hand. “Admiration in him 
has nimble feet. I have heard of love at first sight, but have scarce- 
ly credited it till now.” Her eyes besought me to be still, but I con- 
tinued, urged, I believe, by some little temper of jealousy, owing to 
the thought of this captain being in love with her, which was mak- 
ing me feel that I was growing very fond of her too. “ But his ideas 
are those of an honorable, pious man,” said I. “ He is a widower — 
his daughter leads a lonely life at home — he knows as much about 
you as he could find out by plying us both with questions. He is 
certainly not a handsome man, but” — Here I stopped short. 

She gazed at me with an expression of alarm. 

“ Oh, Hugh !” she cried, with touching plaintiveness of air and 
voice, “ you will remain my friend ?” 

“What have I said or done to make you doubt it, Helga?” 

“What would you counsel?” she continued. “Do you intend to 
side with him ?” 

“ God forbid !” said I, hastily. 

She turned to the sea to conceal her face from me. 

“ Helga,” said I, softly, for there was no chance for further ten- 
derness than speech would convey, with Abraham stumping the deck 
to windward and a pair of dusky eyes at the wheel often turned upon 
us, “ I am sorry to have uttered a syllable to vex you. How much 
I am your friend you would know if you could see into my heart.” 

She looked at me quickly, with her eyes full of tears, but with a 
grateful smile, too. I was about to speak. 


222 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Hush !” she exclaimed, and walked right aft, raising her hand to 
her brow, as though she spied something on the horizon astern, 

“A delightful day — quite tropical,” exclaimed the captain, ad- 
vancing from the poop-ladder. “ What does Miss Nielsen see ?” 

“ She is always searching for a sail,” said I. 

“ May I take it,” said he, “ that you have communicated to her 
what has passed between us ?” 

“Captain,” I said, “you ask, and perhaps you expect, too much. 
You have been a married man ; you must therefore know the ropes, 
as the sailors say, better than I, who have not yet been in love. All 
that I can positively assure you is that Miss Nielsen is exceedingly 
anxious to return home with me to England.” 

“It -would be unreasonable in me to expect otherwise — for the 
present,” said he. 

He left me and joined Helga, and I gathered by the motions of 
his arms that he was discoursing on the beauty of the morning. 
Presently he went below, and very shortly afterwards arrived, bearing 
a little folding-chair and a cotton umbrella. He placed the chair near 
the skylight. Helga seated herself and took the umbrella from him, 
the shade of which she might find grateful, for the sun had now 
risen high in the heavens — there was heat in the light, with nothing 
in the wind to temper the rays of the luminary. The captain offered 
me a cigar with a bland smile, lighted one himself, and reposed in a 
careless, flowing way upon the skylight close to Helga; his long 
whiskers stirred like smoke upon his waistcoat to the blowing of the 
wind, his loose trousers of blue serge rippled, his chins seemed to 
roll as though in motion down between the points of his collar. 
Clearly his study in the direction of posture was animated by a theory 
of careless, youthful, sailorly elegance; yet never did nautical man 
so completely answer to one’s notions of a West-End hair-dresser. 

He was studiously courteous, and excessively anxious to recom- 
mend himself. I could not discover that he was in the least degree 
embarrassed by the supposition that I had repeated his conversation 
to Helga, though her manner must have assured him that I had told 
her everything. He was shrewd enough to see, however, that she 
was in a mood to listen rather than to be talked to, and so in the 
main he addressed himself to me. He asked me many questions about 
my life-boat experiences, particularly wished to know if I thought 
that my boat, which had been stove in endeavoring to rescue Miss 
Nielsen and her lamented father, would be replaced. 

“Should a fund be raised/’ he exclaimed, “I beg that mv name 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


223 


may not be omitted. My humble guinea is entirely at the service of 
the noble cause you represent. And what grand end may not a 
humble guinea be instrumental in promoting? It may help to rescue 
many wretched souls from the perdition that would otherwise await 
them were they to be drowned without having time to repent. This 
is lamentably true of sailors, Mr. Tregarthen. Scarcely a mariner 
perishes at sea who would not require many years of a devotional 
life to purge himself of his numerous vices. A humble guinea may 
also spare many children the misery of being fatherless, and it may 
shed sunshine upon humble homes by restoring husbands to their 
wives. You will kindly put me down for a humble guinea.” 

I thanked him as though I supposed he was in earnest. 

“You will never take charge of a life-boat again, I hope, Hugh,” 
said Helga. 

“ Why not? I like the work,” I answered. 

“ See what it has brought you to,” said she. 

“ Into enjoying the association and friendship of Miss Helga Niel- 
sen,” exclaimed the captain. “ Mr. Tregarthen will surely not regret 
that experience.” 

“ I feel that I am responsible for his being here, Captain Bunting,” 
said she, “ and I shall continue wretched for his and* his mother’s 
sake till we are journeying to England.” 

“ I would gladly put my ship about and sail her home to oblige 
you,” exclaimed the captain, “ but for one consideration : not the 
pecuniary loss that would follow — -oh, dear, no !” he added, slowly 
shaking his head ; “ it would too quickly sever me from a compan- 
ionship I find myself happy in.” 

She bit her lip, looking down with a face of dismay and chagrin, 
while he eyed her as though seeking for signs of gratification. 

“ The Canary Islands are within a short sail, I think, captain,” 
said I. 

“ They are,” he responded. 

“It would occasion no deviation, I think, for you to heave off 
some port there — call it Santa Cruz — and send us ashore in one of 
your excellent, sharp-ended quarter-boats.” 

“ That would be giving me no time,” he answered, without the least 
hesitation, and speaking and smiling in the politest, the most bland 
manner conceivable, “to prevail upon you and Miss Nielsen to accom- 
pany me.” 

“ But to accompany you where, captain ?” cried I, warming up, 

“ To the Cape,” he answered. 


224 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“Aye, to the Cape,” said I; “but I understood that you were to 
call there to discharge a small cargo and await orders.” 

“You do not put it quite accurately,” said he, still oily to the last 
degree in his accent and expression. “ I own the greater proportion 
of this vessel, and my orders are my interests. When I have dis- 
charged this cargo I must look out for another.” 

“ Yes,” said I ; “ and when you have got it, where is it going to 
carry you to ?” 

“Ah!” he exclaimed, with a sigh, “who can pierce the future? 
But who would pierce it ? Depend upon it, young gentleman, that 
human blindness — I mean intellectual blindness” — he was proceed- 
ing ; but I was in no humor to listen to a string of insipid, nasally 
pronounced commonplaces. 

“ The long and the short of it, Captain Bunting,” said I, finding 
an impulse in the soft but glowing eyes which Helga fixed upon me. 
But before I could proceed, Abraham came from the little brass rail 
which protected the break of the poop. 

“ Beg pardon, sir,” said he, addressing the captain. “ That there 
chap Nakier has arsted to be allowed to say a word along wi’ ye.” 

“ Where is he, Wise ?” inquired the captain, smiling into the boat- 
man’s face. 

“ He’s a-waiting down on t the quarter-deck, sir.” 

“Call him.” 

The “ boss ” mounted the ladder. I was again impressed by the 
modest, the gentle air his handsome face wore. His fine, liquid, 
dusky eyes glittered as he approached, but without in the least quali- 
fying his docile expression. He pulled off his queer old soldier’s cap, 
and stood looking an instant earnestly from me to Helga before 
fastening his dark but brilliant gaze upon the captain. 

“ What now, Nakier ?” 

“ Dere’s Goh Lyn Koh says de men’s dinner to-day is all ee same 
as yesterday,” said the man. 

“You mean pork and pease-soup?” 

“ Yaas, sar,” answered the fellow, nodding with an Eastern swift- 
ness of gesture. 

“Just so. Pork and pease-soup. You threw your allowance over- 
board yesterday. I have not ordered pork and pease-soup to be given 
to you two days running as a punishment ! — oh, dear, no !” he went 
on, with a greasy chuckle coming out, as it were, from the heart of 
his roll of chins. “ What ! punish a crew by giving them plenty to 
eat? No, no; I simply intend that you and the rest of you shall 


/ desire continued the captain, very blandly, l to get rid of your deplorable prejudices as I would extin- 
guish a side of bacon — rasher by rasher ” 







THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


225 


know that I am captain of this ship, and that I must have my 
way !” 

“Dat is proper,” exclaimed Nalder. “No man ever say no to dat. 
But we no eat pork. We sooner eat dirt. We will not eat pease- 
soup — it is gravy of pork. We sooner drink tar.” 

“ Can you conceive such bigotry, such superstition, in men who are 
really, Miss Nielsen, not totally wanting in brains?” exclaimed the 
captain, turning to Helga. 

She looked away from him. 

“ Nakier,” he continued, “ you know, my good fellow, there must 
be a beginning. Have you ever tasted pork ?” 

“ No, sah ; it is against my religion ?” cried the man, vehemently. 

“Your religion !” exclaimed the captain. “Alas, poor man ! it is 
not religion, it is superstition of the most deplorable kind ; and, since 
every captain stands as father to his crew, it is my duty, as your 
father for the time, to endeavor to win you, my children for the time, 
to a knowledge of the truth !” He glanced askew at Helga, and pro- 
ceeded : “ You will begin by eating each of you a mouthful of pork. 
I do not expect much — just one mouthful apiece to begin with. You 
may then follow on with a meal of salt-beef. The first step is every- 
thing. My idea is to deal with one superstition at a time. Why 
should pork be unfit for you ? It is good for this lady ; it is good 
for me ; for this gentleman ; for Wise there. Are we inferior to 
you, Nakier, that we should be willing to eat what you and my poor 
dark crew — dark in mind as in skin — profess to disdain?” 

“ We cannot eat pork,” said the man. 

“Oh, I think so. You will try?” 

“ No, sah, no !” There was a sharp, wild gleam in his eyes as he 
pronounced these words, a look that desperately contradicted his 
face, and his gaze at the captain was now a steadfast stare. 

“I desire,” continued the captain, very blandly, “to get rid of your 
deplorable prejudices as I would extinguish a side of bacon — rasher 
by rasher.” This he said with another leer at Helga. “ I have some 
knowledge of your faith. You need but make up your mind to 
know that what I do I do in the highest interests of my crew, and 
then I shall have every hope of getting you to listen to me, and of 
transforming you all into thoughtful Christian men before we reach 
Cape Town.” 

“You will give us beef to-day, sah?” 

“ I think not ; and if you throw your allowance overboard you shall 
have pork again to-morrow.” 

15 


226 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ We did not sign yonr articles for dis,” said the man, who spoke 
English with a good accent. 

“The articles provide for certain food,” answered the captain, 
“and that food is served out to you in very good measure. You 
will try — you will try to eat this pork, and when I learn that you 
have every one of you swallowed one mouthful, you will find me in- 
dulgent in other directions, and ready to proceed on the only course 
which can result in your salvation.” 

“ You will not give us beef to-day, sah ?” said the mau, shaking 
his head. 

“ Yes ; but I must learn first that you have eaten of the pork. I 
will not insist upon the soup, but the pork you must eat !” 

“No, sah !” 

“You can go forward !” 

“We signed for meat, sah ; we cannot work on biscuit !” 

“ Meat you have, and excellent meat, too. It is my business to 
make Christians of you. This little struggle is natural. You can 
go forward, I say !” 

Helga, catching her breath as though to a sudden hysteric constric- 
tion of the throat, cried out, “ Captain, do not starve these men ! 
Give them the food their religion permits them to eat !” 

He looked at her for a moment or two in silence. It was hard to 
guess at his mind under that fixedly smiling countenance, but it seemed 
to me as though in those few moments of pause there was happening 
a really bitter conflict of thought in him. 

“ I know my duty !” he exclaimed. “ I know what my responsi- 
bilities are here : what is expected of me.” He reflected again. “ I 
shall have to render an account for my conduct, and human weak- 
ness is not forgiven in those who know what is right, and who are in 
a position to maintain, enforce, and confirm the right.” He paused 
again, then saying, softly, to Helga, “ For your sake !” he turned to 
Nakier. “ This lady wishes that the crew shall have the food their 
black and wicked superstitions suffer them to eat. Be it so — for 
to-day. Let the cook go to Mr. Jones’s cabin for the key of the 
harness-cask.” 

Without a word, the man rounded upon his heel and went forward. 

The captain gazed at Helga, while he pensively pulled his whiskers. 

“ It is just possible,” said he, “ that you may not be very intimately 
acquainted with the character of the religion I am endeavoring to 
correct in those poor, dark fellow-creatures of mine.” 

“ I dare say they are very happy in their belief,” she answered. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


227 


“ Aye, and the drunkard is happy in his bottle, and the pickpocket 
when his hand is in the stranger’s fob ; but it is a sort of happiness 
the honest part of the world are incessantly struggling to cure. Let 
me give you two examples of the credulity of our friends yonder,” 
bending his head sideways in the direction of the forecastle. “ Nakier 
will tell you, and will solemnly swear to the truth of what he tells, 
that Mahomet was conveyed on a mysterious animal from Mecca to 
Jerusalem, whence he ascended the seven heavens, conversed with 
patriarchs and angels, then descended to Jerusalem, and returned to 
Mecca — all in the tenth part of a night. Nakier and his mates there 
believe that. They will also swear that the moon, at Mahomet’s com- 
mand, performed seven revolutions round the temple of Mecca, saluted 
the prophet in the Arabic language, entered at the collar of his shirt, 
and issued forth through his sleeve. What say you to that, Miss Niel- 
sen ? And a third : that the prophet saw angels in heaven whose 
heads were so large that it would take a bird a thousand years to fly 
from one ear to the other. What say you to that ?” he repeated, 
smiling. 

“ They are to be thought of as fairy tales,” said I. “We tell fairy 
tales to children, and they believe them. Those men there are chil- 
dren in their way, too. They will not be punished hereafter, I dare 
say, for being born credulous.” 

“ Besides,” exclaimed Helga, with a defiant gleam in her eye as she 
looked at the captain, “ who are we to sit in judgment on one another? 
Let every man see to himself !” 

He arched his eyebrows and spread his waistcoat, and had fetched 
a deep breath preparatory to delivering one of his fathoms of tedious 
commonplace; but his eye was at that instant taken by the clock 
under the skylight. 

“ Ha !” he cried, “ I must fetch my sextant ; it is drawing on to 
noon. I will bring you an instrument, Miss Nielsen ; we will shoot 
the sun together.” 

“No, if you please!” she exclaimed. 

He entreated a little, but her no was so resolutely pronounced that, 
contenting himself with a bland flourish of his hand, he went below. 

“ What is to be done, Hugh ?” whispered Helga. “ We shall not 
be able to induce him to land us at Santa Cruz. Is he mad, do you 
think?” 

“ No more than I am,” said I. “ One vocation is not enough for 
the fellow. There are others like him in my country of Great Brit- 
ain. What a sea-captain, to be sure ! How well he talks— I mean 


228 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


for a sea-captain ! He has a good command of words. I wager he 
has made more than one rafter echo in his day. And he is sincere, 
too. I saw the struggle in him when you asked that the men should 
have their bit of beef. Yet if they don’t cut his throat — ” 

“ How am I to make him understand,” said she, “ that nothing can 
follow his keeping us here ?” 

“At all events,” I exclaimed, “we can do nothing until we sight 
a ship heading for home.” 

“ That is true,” she answered. 

“ We came aboard yesterday,” I continued, “ since when nothinj 
has been sighted ; therefore, be the disposition of the man what it 
will, he could not down to this moment have put us in the way of 
getting home. But here he comes.” 

He rose through the companion-hatch, with a sextant in his hand, 
and, stepping over to the weather side of the deck, fell to ogling the 
sun that flamed over the weather-bow. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

WE ARE SPOKEN. 

On the afternoon of this same day of Tuesday, October 31st, 
Helga having gone to her cabin, I stepped on deck to smoke a pipe 
— for my pipe was in my pocket when I ran to the life-boat, and 
Captain Bunting had given me a square of tobacco to cut up. 

We had dined at 1. During the course of the meal Helga and 
I had said but very little, willing that the captain should have the la- 
bor of talking. Nor did he spare us. His tongue, as sailors say, 
seemed to have been slung in the middle, and it wagged at both 
ends. His chatter was an infinite variety of nothing ; but he spoke 
with singular enjoyment of the sound of his own voice, with a cease- 
less reference, besides, in his manner to Helga, whom he continued 
silently and self-complacently to regard in a way that rendered her 
constantly uneasy, and kept her downward-looking and silent. 

But nothing more at that table was said about our leaving his 
ship. Indeed, both Helga and I had agreed to drop the subject un- 
til an opportunity for our transference should arrive. We might, at 
all events, be very certain that he would not set us ashore in the 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


229 


Canary Islands ; nor did I consider it politic to press him to land 
us there, for, waiving all consideration of other reasons which might 
induce him to detain us, it would have been unreasonable to entreat 
him to go out of his course to oblige us, who were without the 
means to repay him for his trouble and for loss of time. 

He withdrew to his cabin after dinner. Helga and I sat over his 
draught-board for half an hour; she then went below, and I, as I 
have already said, on deck, to smoke a pipe. 

The wind had freshened since noon, and was now blowing a brisk 
and sparkling breeze out of something to the northward of east ; sail 
had been heaped upon the bark, and when I gained the deck I found 
her swarming through it under overhanging wings of studding-sail, 
a broad wake of frost-like foam stretching behind, and many flying- 
fish sparking out of the blue curl from the vessel’s cut-water ere 
the polished round of brine flashed into foam abreast of the fore- 
rigging. Mr. Jones stumped the deck, having relieved Abraham at 
noon. • The fierce-faced, lemon-colored creature with withered brow 
and fiery glances grasped the wheel. As I crouched under the lee 
of the companion-hatch to light my pipe, I curiously and intently 
inspected him, strangely enough finding no hinderance of embarrass- 
ment from his staring at me too — which, I take it, was owing to 
his exceeding ugliness ; so that I looked at him as at something out 
of nature, whose sensibilities were not of a human sort to grieve 
me with a fancy of vexing them. 

“Well, Mr. Jones,” said I, crossing the deck and accosting the 
shabby figure of the mate as he slouched from one end to another 
in shambling slippers and in a cap with a broken peak, under which 
his thimble-shaped nose glowed in the middle of his pale face like — 
to match the poor creature with an elegant simile — the heart of a 
daisy, “ this is a very good wind for you, but bad for me, seeing how 
the ship heads. I want to get home, Mr. Jones. I have now been 
absent for nearly eleven days, though my start was but for an hour 
or two’s cruise.” 

“ There’s no man at sea,” said he, “ but wants to get home, unless 
he’s got no home to go to. That’s my case.” 

“Where do you hail from, Mr. Jones?” 

“ Whitechapel,” he answered, “ when I’m ashore. I live in a big 
house ; they call it the Sailors’ Home. There are no wives to be 
found there, so that the good of it is to make a man glad to ship.” 

“ The sea is a hard life,” said I, “ and a very great deal harder 
than it need be — so Nakier and his men think, I warrant you. A 


230 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


little too much pork, I fear, goes to the making of the captain’s re- 
ligious ideas.” 

“ The pork in this ship,” said he, “ is better than the beef ; and 
what is good enough for English sailors is good enough for dirt- 
colored scaramouches.” 

“Aye, but the poor fellows’ religion is opposed to pork.” 

“Don’t you let them make you believe it, sir,” he exclaimed. 
“ Religion ! You should hear them swear in English ! They want 
a grievance. That’s the nature of everything afore the mast, no 
matter what be the color of the hide it’s wrapped up in.” 

“ What sort of sailors are they ?” 

“Oh, they tumble about; they’re monkeys aloft. They’re willing 
enough, I’m bound to say that.” 

I could instinctively guess that whatever opinions I might offer 
on the captain’s treatment of his crew would find no echo in him. 
Poverty must make such a man the creature of any ship-master he 
sailed with. # 

“ Have you received orders from Captain Bunting,” I asked, “ to 
signal and bring-to any homeward ship that may come along ?” 

“ No, sir.” 

“ We wish to be transshipped, you know, Mr. Jones. We should 
be sorry to lose the opportunity of a homeward-bounder through 
the captain omitting to give you orders, and through his being be- 
low and asleep, perhaps, at the time.” 

“ I can do nothing without his instructions, sir,” he exclaimed, 
with a singular look that rose to the significance of a half smile. 

“All right,” I said, perceiving that his little light-blue eyes had 
witnessed more than I should have deemed them capable of observ- 
ing in the slender opportunities he had had for employing them. 

The wind blew the fire out of my pipe, and to save the tobacco I 
went down to the quarter-deck for the shelter of the bulwarks there. 
When I puffed I spied Jacob low down in the lee fore-rigging re- 
pairing or replacing some chafing-gear upon the swifter-shroud. I 
had not exchanged a word with this honest boatman since the pre- 
vious day, and strolled forward to under the lee of the galley to 
greet him. I asked him if he was comfortable in his new berth. 
He answered yes ; he was very well satisfied ; the captain had given 
orders that he was to have a glass of grog every day at noon ; the 
provisions were also very good, and there was no stint. 

“ ’Soides,” he called down to me, with his fat, ruddy face framed 
in the squares of the ratlines, “ three pound a month’s good money. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


231 


There’ll be something to take up when I gets home, something that’ll 
loighten the loss o’ my eight pound o’ goods and clothes, and make 
the foundering of the Airly Mam easier to think of.” 

“You and Abraham, then, have regularly entered yourselves for 
the round voyage !” 

“Aye ; the cap’n put us on the articles this afternoon. He called 
ns to his cabin and talked like a gemman to us. ’Tain’t often as 
one meets the likes of him at sea. No language — a koind smoile — 
a thank ye for whatever a man does, if so be as it’s rightly done — a 
feeling consarn for your morals and your comforts; tell ’ee, Mr. 
Tregarthen, the loikes of Cap’n Buntin’ ain’t agoin’ to be fallen in 
with every day— -leastways, in vessels arter this here pattern, where 
mostly a man’s a dog in the cap’n’s opinion, and where the mate’s 
got no other argument than the fust iron belay ing-pin he can whip 
out.” 

“ I am very glad to learn that you are so well satisfied,” said I. 
“ A pity poor Thomas isn’t with you. He would be as satisfied, I 
dare say, as you are with what has fallen out.” 

“ Poor Tommy ! There’s nothen in my toime as has made me 
feel so ordinary as Thomas’s drownding. But as to him making 
hisself happy here — ” 

“ I beg your pardon, sah,” said a voice close beside me. 

I turned, losing the remainder of Jacob’s observations, and per- 
ceived the face of Nakier in the galley door, that was within an 
arm’s-length of me from where I leaned. His posture was one of 
hiding, as though to conceal him from the sight of the poop. As I 
looked a copper-colored face, with black, angry eyes flashing under 
a low forehead as wrinkled as the rind of an old apple, with the tem- 
per that worked in the creature, showed behind Nakier’s head, and 
vanished in a breath. I now recollected that when I had first taken 
up my station under the lee of the galley I had caught the hiss of a 
swift, fiery whispering within the little structure, but it had instantly 
ceased on my calling to Jacob, and the matter went out of my head 
as I listened to the boatman in the rigging. 

“ I beg your pardon, sah ! May I speakee a word with you ?” 

“ What is it, Nakier ?” I exclaimed, finding a sort of pleasure in 
the mere contemplation of his handsome face and noble, liquid East- 
ern eyes, dark and luminous like the gleam you will sometimes ob- 
serve in a midnight sea. 

“ Are you a sailor, sah ?” 

“I am not,” I responded. 


232 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Can you tellee ipe de law of ships ?” 

Here the copper-colored face came out again, and now hung steady 
with its frown over Nakier’s shoulder ; but both fellows kept all but 
their heads hidden. 

“ I know what you mean,” I answered. “ I fear I cannot counsel 
you.” 

“ Our captain would have us starve,” said he ; “ he give us meat 
we must not eat, and on dose days we have only bread-and- water. 
Dat is not right ?” 

“ No, indeed,” said I ; “ and how little we think it right you may 
know by what the lady said to-day.” 

“ Ah, she is good ! she is good !” he exclaimed, always speaking 
very softly, and clasping his long thin fingers with filbert-shaped nails 
while he upturned his wonderful eyes. “ We are not of de captain’s 
religion — he sabbe dat when we ship. Is dere law among English- 
man to ponish him for trying to make us eat what is forbidden ?” 

“I wish I knew — I wish I could advise you,” said I, somewhat 
secretly relieved by hearing this man talk of law ; for when I bad 
watched him that morning on the poop I would have sworn that his 
and his mates’ whole theory of justice lay in the blades which rested 
upon sheaths strapped to their hips. “ One thing you may be sure 
of, Nakier, Captain Bunting has no right to force food upon you 
that is forbidden to you by your religion. There must be lawyers 
in Cape Town who will tell you how to deal with this matter if it 
is to be dealt with. Meanwhile, try to think of your captain in this 
business as” — I significantly tapped my forehead. “That will 
help you to patience, and the passage to the Cape is not a long one.” 

The copper - colored face behind Nakier violently wagged, the 
frown deepened, and the little dangerous eyes grew, if possible, more 
menacing in their expression. 

“ He is a cruel man,” said Nakier, with a sigh as plaintive as one 
could imagine in any love-sick Eastern maid; “but we will be patient; 
and, sah, I tank you for listening.” 

The copper-colored face disappeared. 

“You are no sailot, sah!” continued Nakier, smiling, and showing 
as pearl-white a set of teeth as were ever disclosed by the fairest 
woman’s parted lips ; “ and yet you have been shipwreck ?” 

I briefly related my life-boat adventure, and in a few words com- 
pleted the narrative of the raft and of our deliverance by the lugger. 
Indeed, it pleased me to talk with him : his accent, his looks, were a 
sort of realization, in their way, of early boyish dreams of travel ; 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


233 


they carried me in fancy to the provinces of the sun ; I tasted the 
ripe aromatic odors of tropic vegetation; there seemed a scent as of 
the hubble-bubble in the blue and sparkling breeze gushing fair over 
the rail. He begot in me a score of old yearning imaginations — of 
the elephant richly castellated, of the gloom of palatial structures 
dedicated to idols, their domes starry with incrustation of gems and 
the precious ores. 

The brief spell was broken by Jacob’s gruff longshore voice : 

“ It don’t look, Mr. Tregarthen, as if you and the lady was to git 
home as fast as ye want to.” 

“No,” I replied. “Do you see anything in sight up there, 
Jacob ?” 

He spat, and looked leisurely ahead. 

“ Nothen, sir.” 

“ I beg pardon, sah !” broke in Nakier’s voice. “ Do you sabbe 
navigation ?” 

“ I do not,” I answered, struck with a question that recalled Pun- 
meamootty’s inquiries that morning. 

“But Mr. Vise,” he continued, “ he sabbe navigation ?” 

I shook my head, with a slight smile. 

“ He has some trifling knowledge,” said I. “ Fortunately, there 
is no occasion to trust to his skill.” 

“ De sweet young lady sabbe navigation, sah ?” 

“I will not answer for it!” I exclaimed, looking at him. A sud- 
den fancy in me may have been disclosed by my eyes. His gaze 
fell, and he drew in his head. Just then I caught sight of Helga at 
the break of the poop to leeward, looking along the decks. She saw 
me and beckoned. As I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, Jacob 
cried out: “ Blowed if I don’t believe that’s a steamer’s smoke ahead !” 
Ha, thought I, Helga has seen it, and I at once made for the poop- 
ladder. 

It was as I had supposed. She had seen the smoke when she 
came on deck, and instantly looked about for me. It was the merest 
film, the faintest streak, dim as a filament of spider’s web ; but it was 
directly ahead, and it was easy to guess that unless the steamer was 
heading east or west she must be coming our way, for assuredly, 
though The Light of the World was sweeping through it at some 
six or seven knots, we were not going to overhaul a steamer at that 
pace. 

A telescope lay in brackets inside the companion-way ; I fetched 
and levelled it, but there was nothing more to be seen than the soar- 


234 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


ing of the thin blue vein of smoke from behind the edge of the sea, 
where the dark, rich central blue of it went lightening out into a 
tint of opal. It did not take long, however, to discover by the hang- 
ing of the smoke in the same place that the steamer was heading 
directly for us. I put down the glass, and said to Mr. Jones, 

“ Will you be so good as to call, the captain and tell him that 
there is a steamer in sight coming this way ?” 

“ I have no orders to call the captain merely to report a ship in 
sight, sir,” he answered. 

“ That may be,” said I ; “ but here is a chance for us to leave this 
vessel, and the captain might not thank you to keep him ignorant of 
the opportunity.” 

“ I can’t help it, sir. My duty here is to obey orders, and to do 
what’s expected of me, and no more,” and so saying he marched 
shambling aft ; yet I will not say that his manner of leaving me was 
abrupt or offensive. 

“ There is no time to be lost, Helga,” said I. “ If that steamer 
is doing ten and we are doing six the joint speed is sixteen knots, 
and she will be abreast of us and away again quickly. I will report 
to the captain myself,” with which I went on to the quarter-deck 
and passed into the cabin and knocked on the door of Captain Bunt- 
ing’s berth. *V * - 

He immediately cried, “ Who’s there ?” «£ 

“ Mr. Tregarthen,” I answered. s*\ 

“ Are you alone?” he called. 

I told him I was. 

“ Then pray walk in,” said he. 

I opened the door, and found him lying in his bunk in his shirt- 
sleeves. Full as I was of the business of the steamer heaving into 
view, I could yet manage to notice, now that he was under no par- 
ticular obligation to smile, that his habitual grin when his face was 
off duty, so to speak, was of the kind that is called sardonic. It was 
the set of his mouth with the thick curve of its upper lip that made 
the smile ; but his eyes bore not the least part in this expression of 
mirth. It was a mere stroke of nature in him, however, and, though 
the congenital grin did not increase his beauty, it left untouched in 
his countenance the old character of blandness, self-complacency, and 
an air of kindness, too. 

“ What can I do for you, Mr. Tregarthen ?” said he, promptly sit- 
ting up in his bunk, with a glance around for his coat. 

“ I must ask your pardon for intruding upon you,” said I. “ There 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


235 


is a steamer’s smoke in sight over the bows; Mr. Jones declined to 
report her to you. I venture to do so, and I have also to ask you, 
Captain Bunting, to signal her to stop that she may receive Miss 
Nielsen and me.” 

“ I shall be very willing to transfer you, Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, 
without more or less significance in his manner than was usual itf 
it ; “ but you must not, you really must not, ask me to part in this 
sort of hurry with your sweet, engaging companion.” 

“ I certainly shall not leave you without her,” said I, breathing 
quickly. 

“Just so,” he exclaimed; “ nor is it my wish that you should. I 
want you to convert your experience of shipwreck into a little holi- 
day cruise. I hope you are comfortable with me?” 

“Perfectly comfortable; but, all the same, Miss Nielsen and I de- 
sire to .return to England, and I must entreat — indeed, Captain 
Bunting, I must insist upon your signalling the steamer that is rap- 
idly approaching us.” 

He opened his eyes at the word insist , which I deplored having 
made use of the moment it had escaped me ; but he continued very 
bland, and his smile, being now vitalized, as when he was at the 
table or on deck with us, had lost what I had found sardonic in it. 

“ A captainls powers, Mr. Tregarthen, are considerable,” he ex- 
claimed. “ fie is first on board his own ship ; his will is the law 
that governs the .vessel ; no man aboard but he can insist for an in- 
stant. But my desire is for cordial feelings between us. Let ns be 
friends and talk as friends. Pray bear wfith me. You are in pos- 
session of my hopes. Do not add fears to them by your behavior.” 

He dropped his head on one side, and surveyed me with an eye 
that seemed almost wistful. I believed that he meant to keep me 
talking till the steamer had passed. s* 

“ Captain Bunting,” said I, “ I am as fully disposed as you are to 
be friendly, but I must tell you that if you decline to transfer us — 
if, in other words, you force us to proceed on this voyage — you will 
be acting at your peril. I shall exact reparation, and whatever the 
law can do for me shall be done. Practically, you will be abduct- 
ing Miss Nielsen, and that , you must know, is a highly punishable 
offence.” 

He motioned with both his hands. 

“ It is no abduction,” said he. “ When you rescue a young lady 
with your life-boat from a foundering craft you do not abduct her. 
I can understand your impatience, and forgive your irritability. Yet 


236 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


I bad thought to have some claim upon you for a more generous, 
for a handsomer interpretation of my wishes. What is the reason 
of this extreme hurry in you to return home ?” 

“ You surely do not require me to repeat my answer to that ques- 
tion !” I exclaimed, curbing my temper with an effort. 

“To be sure. You are concerned for your poor dear mother. 
Come, Mr. Tregarthen, suppose we send news of your # safety by this 
steamer you have reported !” His face beamed. “Let me see — 
your home is — your home is — ” He scratched his head. I viewed 
him without speaking. “ Ah, I have it — Tintrenale !” He spelled 
it twice or thrice. “Hugh Tregarthen, Tintrenale. Come, the 
steamer shall report your safety, and then your mind will be at ease.” 

“ I am to understand that you refuse to transfer us, Captain Bunt- 
ing?” 

“ Nay, never interpret the mind of another harshly. You know 
my wishes ; every hour renders them dearer and dearer to me.” 

Under all this blandness I could now perceive a spirit of resolu- 
tion that was clearly no more to be influenced by me than his ship’s 
side was to be kicked out by a blow of my foot. I turned to leave 
the cabin. 

“ If you are going on deck, will you have the kindness to send 
Mr. Jones to me?” said he. 

I pulled the door to, and regained the poop. 

“ The captain wants you,” I called to Mr. Jones, who immediate- 
ly left the deck. Helga came to me. 

“ He refuses to transship us,” said I. 

“ He dare not !” she cried, turning pale. 

“ The creature, all smiles and blandness, says no, with as steady a 
thrust of his meaning as though it were a boarding-pike. We have 
to determine either to jump overboard or to remain with him.” 

She clasped her hands. Her courage seemed to fail her ; her eyes 
shone brilliant with the alarm that filled her. 

“ Can nothing be done ? Is it possible that we are so entirely in 
his power? Could we not call upon the crew to help us?” A sob 
arrested her broken exclamations. 

I stood looking at the approaching steamer, struggling with my 
mind for some idea to make known our situation to her as she 
passed, but to no purpose. Why, though she should thrash through 
it within earshot of us, what meaning could I hope to convey in the 
brief cry I might have time to deliver ? I cannot express the rage, 
the bitterness, the mortification, the sense, too, of the startling ab- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


237 


surdity of our position, which fumed in my brains as I stGod silent- 
ly gazing at the steamer, with Helga at my side, white, straining her 
eyes at me, swiftly breathing, with a sob now again in her throat. 

In the short time during which I had been below the approach- 
ing vessel had shaped herself upon the sea, and was growing large 
with a rapidity that expressed her an ocean mail-boat. Already, 
with the naked sight, I could catch the glint of the sun upon the 
gilt device at her stem-head, and sharp flashes of the reflection of 
light in some many-windowed deck structure broke from her, end-on 
as she was, to her slow, stately swaying, as though she were firing 
guns. 

The captain remained below. A few minutes after Mr. Jones had 
gone to him, he — that is, the mate — came on to the poop, bearing a 
great blackboard, which he rested upon the deck. 

.“Captain Bunting’s compliments, Mr. Tregarthen,” said he, “and 
he’ll be glad to know if this message is satisfactory to you?” 

Upon the board was written, in chalk, in very visible, decipherar 
ble characters, like the letters of print, the following words : 


HUGH TREGARTHEN OF TINTRENALE, 
BLOWN OUT OF BAY NIGHT OCTOBER 21st, 

IS SAFE 

ON BOARD THIS SHIP, LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
BUNTING, MASTER, TO CAPE TOWN. 
PLEASE REPORT. 


“ That will do,” said I, coldly, and resumed my place at the rail. 

Helga said, in a low voice, “ What is the object of that board ?” 

“They will read the writing aboard the steamer,” I answered, 
“ make a note of it, report it, and my mother will get to hear of it 
and know that I am alive.” 

“ But how will she get to hear of it ?” 

“ Oh, the message is certain to find its way into the shipping pa- 
pers, and there will be twenty people at Tintrenale to hear of it and 
repeat it to her.” 


238 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ It is a good idea, Hugh,” said she. “ It is a message to rest her 
poor heart. It may reach her, too, as quickly as you yourself could 
if we went on board that steamer. It was clever of you to think 
of it.” 

“ It was the captain’s suggestion !” I exclaimed. 

“ Hugh, it is a good idea,” she repeated, with something of life 
coming into her blanched, dismayed face; “you will feel a little 
happier. I shall feel happier, too. I have grieved to think your 
mother may suppose you drowned. Now, in a few days, she will 
know that you are well.” 

“ Yes, it is a good idea,” said I, with my eyes gloomily fastened 
upon the steamer; “but is it not monstrous that we should be im- 
prisoned in this fashion ? That fellow below has no right to detain 
us. If it should cost me five years of my income, I’ll punish him. 
It is his admiration for you that makes him reckless — but what does 
the rascal hope ? He talked of his willingness to transfer me, pro- 
viding you remained.” 

“Oh, but you would not leave me with him, Hugh!” she cried, 
grasping my arm. 

“ Leave you, Helga! No, indeed. But I made one great blunder 
in my chat with him this morning. He asked me if there was any- 
thing between us — meaning were we sweethearts — and I said no. 
I should have answered yes; I should have told him we were be- 
trothed ; then, perhaps, he would have been willing to let us leave 
him.” 

She returned no answer. I looked at her, and saw an expression 
in her face that told me I had said too much. The corners of her 
little mouth twitched, she slightly glanced at me and tried to smile 
on observing that I was regarding her, then made a step from my 
side as though to get a better view of the steamer. 

“She’s a fine big ship,” exclaimed Mr. Jones, who had quietly 
drawn close to me ; “ a Cape boat. In six days’ time she’ll be snug 
in dock. When I was first going to sea I laughed at steam. Now, 
I should be glad if there was nothing else afloat.” 

My impulse was to draw away, but my temper had somewhat 
cooled, and was now allowing me the exertion of my common-sense 
again. If I was to be kept aboard this ship, it could serve no sort 
of end to make an enemy of Mr. Jones. 

“ Yes,” said I, “ she is coming along in fine style — a mail-steamer 
apparently. Why will not the captain signal her ? Surely she 
would receive us !” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


239 


“ Not a doubt of it,” he answered, almost maliciously ; “ but the 
captain knows his own business, sir.” 

“ Where’s your flag-locker ?” cried I. “ Show it me, and I’ll ac- 
cept the responsibility of hoisting the ensign half-mast high !” 

“Not without the captain’s orders, Mr.Tregarthen,” said he. 

“ The captain !” I exclaimed. “ He has nothing to do with me. 
He’s your master, not mine !” 

“ He’s master of this ship, sir ; and the master of a ship is the 
master of everything aboard of her !” 

Helga softly called to me. I went to her. 

“ Do not reason with him, Hugh !” she whispered. “ Let the 
people in that steamer read the message, and we can afford to be 
patient — for a little,” she added. 

“ For a little !” I rejoined. “But how long will that little make? 
Is it to stretch from here to Table Bay ?” 

But by this time the steamer was on the lee bow, and when abreast 
would be within a few cables’ length of us. I thought to myself, 
shall I spring upon the rail and hail her in God’s name, wave my 
hands to her to stop, and take my chance of her people hearing the 
few words I should have time to bawl ? Then, with the velocity of 
thought, I reflected that the mate would be certain to hinder any 
such attempt on my part, to the length, I dare say, of laying hands 
upon me and pulling me off the rail, so that I might subject myself to 
what would prove but little short of an outrage, while I should like- 
wise forfeit the opportunity of getting the message delivered ; for 
there was no man on the poop to hold up the board but the mate, 
and if the mate was busy with me the board must remain hidden. 

All this I thought, and while I thought the steamer was sweeping 
past us at a speed of some twelve or thirteen knots, with Mr. Jones 
standing something forward of the mizzen-rigging holding up the 
board at arm’s-length. 

The picture of that rushing metal fabric was full of glittering 
beauty. Her tall promenade deck, draped with white awnings, out 
of which the black column of her funnel forked leaning, was crowd- 
ed with passengers, male and female. Dresses of white, pink, green 
— the ladies of South Africa, I believe, go very radiantly clad — flut- 
tered and rippled to the sweep of the strong breeze raised by the 
steamer’s progress. Those who walked came to a stand to survey 
us, and a dozen binocular glasses were pointed. High above, on the 
white canvas bridge, the mate in charge of the ship was reading the 
handwriting on the blackboard through a telescope that flashed like 


240 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


silver in his hands. Beside him, twinkling in buttons and lace, 
stood the commander of the steamer, as I might suppose. The sun 
was in the south-west sky ; his reddening brilliance beat full upon 
the ship that was thundering by faster than a hurricane could have 
blown The Light of the World along ; and the glass in her line of 
port-holes* seemed to stream in fire, as though the tall black iron sides 
were veritably belted with flame. There were stars of gold in her 
bright-yellow masts, and a writhing of glowing light all about the 
gilt-work with which her quarters were glorified. She rolled softly, 
and every inclination was like the twist of a kaleidoscope for tints. 
How mean did the little bark look at that instant ! how squalid her 
poor old stumpy decks with their embellishment of rude scuttle- 
butt, of grimy caboose, of squab long-boat, not to mention the choice 
humanities of her forecastle, the copper-colored scarecrows who had 
dropped the various jobs they were upon to stare with their sloe-like 
eyes at the passing show ! 

She had not swept past abreast by more than her own length 
when the twinkling commander on the bridge flourished his arm. 

“ And about time, too !” cried Mr. Jones, lowering the board and 
leaning it against the rail. “ They must be poor hands at spelling 
aboard that ship, to keep me holding up that board as if I were a 
topsail-yard proper to set a whole sail upon !” 

“ Have they read the message, do you think, Mr. Jones?” cried Helga. 

“ Oh, yes, yes, miss,” he answered. 

He ran in an awkward sprawl to the skylight, where the telescope 
lay, pointed it, and exclaimed, “ See for yourself, miss !” 

She levelled the glass with the ease and precision of an old sailor. 

“ Yes, Hugh,” she called to me, while she held the telescope to 
her eye; “the man in the jacket and buttons is writing in what 
looks to be a pocket-book ; the other bends over him as though to 
see that the words are correct. I am satisfied !” and putting the 
glass down she returned to me. 

The steamer was now astern of us, showing but little more than 
the breadth of her, rapidly growing toy-like as she swept onwards, 
with an oil-smooth wake spreading fan-shaped from her counter, and 
the white foam curving with the dazzle of sifted snow from either 
side the iron tooth of her sheering stem. My heart ach*ed with the 
yearning for home as I followed her. At that moment eight bells 
was struck forward, and almost immediately Abraham came aft to 
relieve Mr. Jones, who, after saying a word or two to the boatman, 
picked up the board and went below. 


Have they read the message , do you think , Mr. Jones ?’ cried Helga. 






















































































% 









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THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


241 


CHAPTER XX. 

I MAKE FREE. 

“ There’s a hopportunity lost, Mr. Tregarthen !” exclaimed Abra- 
ham, looking at the receding steamer. “ Not that me and Jacob 
ain’t satisfied, but there’s ne’er a doubt that wessel ’ud ha’ taken you 
and the lady, if so be as Cap’n Bunting had asted her.” 

“ We are kept here against our will,” said I. “ What the man 
means to do I don’t know, but what he can do I now see. Unless I 
can get those black fellows to back the top-sail and put us aboard the 
next ship when she comes along, here we must stop until it is the 
captain’s pleasure to release us.” 

“ But what does he want along of ye ?” inquired Abraham, in a 
low, hoarse voice, with a glance at the open skylight. 

I looked at Helga, and then said, bluntly — for I had some dim 
hope of this boatman and his mate being able to help us, and the 
plain truth must therefore be given to them : “ The long and short 
of it is, Abraham, the captain greatly admires Miss Nielsen — he has 
fallen in love with her, in short — and so you have it.” 

Helga looked and listened without any air of embarrassment, 
as though the reference were of general instead of individual in- 
terest. 

“ But he hain’t fallen in love with you , sir ? Why do he want to 
keep ye both, then ? Couldn’t he have sent you aboard?” 

“ You astonish me !” I cried. “ Do you suppose I would leave this 
lady alone in the vessel ?” 

“ Why, p’r’aps not,” he answered ; “ but, still, ’tain’t as if you was 
a lady, one of her own sex, as was hacting companion to her. Oi 
don’t mean to say that one man’s as good as another ; but I don’t 
see no call for you to keep all on in this here wessel.” 

“ What am I to understand you to mean ?” cried I. “ That Miss 
Nielsen is to be left without a protector in the company of a fellow 
like Captain Bunting ?” 

“ But if he’s willing to be her protector, sir, ain’t it all right ?” he 
inquired. 

16 


242 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Has not your head been turned ?” said Helga, warmly, with a 
flushed face. 

He looked stupidly from one to the other of us with a slow gaze 
and a mind laboring to master the difficulty he could not understand. 

“ Sorry if I’ve said' anything to offend ye, miss,” said he ; “ this 
here cap’n’s an honorable man, Oi allow, and he’s evidently on the 
lookout for a wife. All I says is, what’s the good of his keeping 
Mr. Tregarthen away from his home when he’s willing to take his 
place ?” 

“ But he must not take his place !” exclaimed Helga, with glow- 
ing eyes, in which I looked to see a tear presently. “ I would 
drown myself if I were to be left here alone !” 

A slow smile animated the leathern countenance of Abraham. 

“Then, mum, asking your pardon, all Oi can say is, Mr. Tre- 
garthen should ha’ put it differently. Where there’s wan there’s 
no call for tew, and there being wan already, then, of course, it’s the 
cap’n’s duty to send ye both home as soon as he can.” 

“ If Captain Bunting persists,” said I, not choosing to follow the 
line of Abraham’s reasoning, “what is my remedy ? You Deal boat- 
men have the reputation of knowing the law pretty well. First, has 
he the right to carry us with him against our wishes ?” 

“ There’s never much question of right along with sea-captains,” 
he answered. “ My ’sperience is that what the master of a wessel 
chooses to do he will do, and the rights of it somehow seems to 
come out of his doing of it.” 

“ But have we no remedy ?” said I. 

“Ask yourself the question !” he answered. “Where’s the rem- 
edy to be found ?” and here he sent his eyes roaming over the sea 
and up aloft and along the decks. 

“ Of all Job’s comforters!” I exclaimed. 

“ If I was you,” he continued, apparently not understanding my 
remark, and sending another cautious look at the open skylight, 
with a further subduing of his voice, “ what Oi’d do is this: Oi’d 
just enjoy myself at this ’ere gemman’s expense, eat his wittles and 
drink his rum — and I’m bound to say this, that a better drop o’ rum 
than he keeps in that there locker of his isn’t to be met with afloat 
or ashore — I say Oi’d drink and eat at his expense, and keep my 
spirits as joyful as sarcumstances might permit, but taking care to 
let him know every day, oy, and p’r’aps twice a day — say at break- 
fast and at supper — that the lady and me wants to get home ; and 
this Oi’d dew till we got to port, and then Oi’d bring an action agin 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


243 


him and sail home on the damages, with a few pound to the 
good.” 

He had barely ceased when he turned sharply round and marched 
aft, and as he did so the captain mounted the poop -ladder, ex- 
claiming, 

“ What very enjoyable weather, to be sure ! Mr. Jones informs 
me that the message was duly noted. Now, Miss Nielsen, we 
may take it that our friend Mr. Tregarthen’s mind is perfectly at 
ease.” 

It was four o’clock when the steamer passed, and, half an hour 
later, she was out of sight, so rapid was the combined pace of the 
vessels. Her name was large upon her stern had we chosen to read 
it, but the mate was too busy with his board and I with my temper 
t(5 note the letters, and Helga did not think of doing so, and thus it 
was that the steamer passed away, and none of us knew more about 
her than that she was a Cape Union mail-liner bound to England 
with now a message, meant for my mother, on board. 

The captain hung about us, and was all blandness, courtesy, and 
admiration when he addressed Helga or directed his eyes at her. On 
his first joining us she said, quickly, pointing to the steamer that 
was still in sight, 

“ Why have you suffered us to lose that opportunity ?” 

“Mr. Tregarthen’s and your company,” he answered, “makes me 
so happy that I cannot bear to part with you yet I” 

Her little nostrils enlarged, her blue eyes glittered, her breast 
quickly rose and fell. 

“ You called yourself a Samaritan yesterday l” she exclaimed, with 
all the scorn her tender soul was capable of, and her pensive, pretty 
face could express. “ Is this the way in which Samaritans usually 
behave?” 

He viewed her as though she were a picture that cannot be held 
in a new position without disclosing a fresh grace. 

“You are too good and kind to be cruel,” said he, regarding her 
with deepening admiration, as it seemed to me. “ The Samaritan 
played his part fairly well yesterday, I believe ?” He blandly bowed 
to her with a countenance of exquisite self-complacency. “ He is 
still on board, my dear young lady, with a character in essentials 
unchanged, merely enlarged.” Here he spread his fingers upon his 
breast, and expanded his waistcoat, looking at her in a very knowing 
sort of way, with his head on one side. “ Now that we have sent 
our message home, there is no hurry. Our little cruise,” he exclaimed, 


244 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


pointing over the bow, “ is almost entirely tropical, and there is no 
reason at all why we should not find it delightful !” 

I caught Helga’s eye, and exhorted her by a glance to keep silent. 
She fixed her gaze upon the deck, with a lip lightly curled by dis- 
gust, and I stepped aft under a pretence to look at the compass, with 
so much more contempt and anger than I could hold between my 
teeth that I dared not speak, for fear I should say a very great deal 
too much. 

The breeze slackened as the sun sank, and at supper, as the cap- 
tain persisted in calling the last meal, the ocean fell calm and the old 
broad -bowed bark rolled sleepily, but with much creaking of her 
rheumatic bones, upon along-drawn polished swell flowing out of the 
north-east. Her canvas beat the masts and fetched reports out of 
the tall spars that penetrated the little cuddy like discharges of 
musketry. 

For a long while the captain gave Helga and me no opportunity 
for a quiet talk. At table he was more effusive than he had yet 
been, distressingly importunate in his attentions to the girl, to whom 
he would address himself in tones of lover-like coaxing if she hap- 
pened to say no to his entreaties to her to drink a little wine, to try 
a slice of ham, and the like. He begged that we should both make 
ourselves thoroughly at home ; his colored cook, he said, was not a 
first-rate hand, but if Miss Helga ever had a fancy she need but name 
it and it would go very hard with the cook if he failed to humor her. 

“We are not a yacht,” said he, pulling a whisker and looking 
around, “ but, most fortunately, gaudy mirrors and handsome carpets 
and the ginger-bread ornamentations of the pleasure craft need never 
form any portion of human happiness at sea. The sun looks as 
brightly down upon The Light of the World as upon the most stately 
ship afloat ; the ocean breeze will taste as sweetly over my bulwark- 
rails as on the bridge of the gallantest man-of-war that flies the 
crimson cross and thus he went on vaporing as usual in fathoms 
of commonplace, yet with a bland underlying insistence always upon 
our being his guests, upon our remaining with him and being happy, 
as though, indeed, we had cheerfully consented to stop, and were 
looking forward with great enjoyment to the voyage. 

I was as cold and distant as I could well be, answered him in 
monosyllables, ate as if with aversion from the food before me, which, 
nevertheless, I constrained myself to devour merely to keep body 
and soul together. But he did not seem to heed my manner in the 
least; I could swear, indeed, that he did not observe it. He was 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


245 


wholly engrossed in contemplation of Helga, and in the enjoyment 
of enlarging his waistcoat, and delivering more or less through his 
nose, with a fixed smile and somewhat leering eye, the dull, trivial, 
insipid contents of his mind. 

He asked the girl to play draughts with him when Punmeamootty 
had cleared the table. On her declining, he fetched from his cabin 
the volume of Jeremy Taylor — it was that divine’s Holy Living 
and Dying, I think — and asked permission to read a few pages 
aloud. She could not refuse, and I see that extraordinary ship-mas- 
ter now, standing under the lamp, holding the portly volume up with 
both hands, smiling upon the page, pausing at intervals to look over 
the top of the book at the girl with a nod to serve as a point of ad- 
miration, and reading nasally in a voice without the faintest inflec- 
tion, so that at a little distance his delivery must have sounded like 
a continuous groan. He then begged her to read to him. 

“ What greater treat could we have,” said he, looking at me, “ than 
to hear the rich, noble, impressive words of this great bishop pro- 
nounced by the charming lips of Miss Helga Nielsen ?” 

But she curtly refused ; and after hovering about her for another 
half-hour, during which I would notice a growing air in him that 
was a distinct intimation, in its way, of his entire satisfaction at the 
progress he was making, he withdrew to his cabin. 

Helga looked at me with weariness and dismay, and moistened her 
lips. 

“ This is worse than the raft,” said I. 

“It is so bad,” she exclaimed, “that I feel persuaded it cannot 
last.” 

“ Let us go on deck. If we linger here he may rejoin us. How 
tragical it all is one may know by the humor of it.” 

We went softly to the companion - steps, and I recollect that I 
looked over my shoulder to see if he was following us — than which 
I can recall no better proof of my perfect recognition of our help- 
lessness. 

The new moon had followed the sun, and the planet would not be 
showing by night for two or three days ; but in the south, and over 
our mast-heads, the sky was richly spangled with stars, which burned 
in one or two dyes of glory, and very sharpjy, whence, from recollec- 
tion of a like sight at home, I supposed that hard weather was at 
hand. There was some little lightning, of a delicate shade of violet, 
in the north-east, which, indeed, would have been no noticeable thing 
down in this part of the world but for the mountainous heaping' of 


246 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


cloud it revealed, a black sullen mass stretching along the sea-line in 
that quarter, and putting a hue as of ink into the dusk which swept 
in glittering obscurity to the shadow of it. There was a great deal 
of greenish fire in the sea, and it broadened and shrank in wide 
spaces in the lift of the noiseless running swell as though the rays of 
a tinted lantern were cast upon the water. The dew was plentiful, 
and lay along the rails aud upon the skylight, crisp as frost in the 
starshine. 

It was Abraham’s watch, and I spied his figure flitting cumbrously 
in the neighborhood of the wheel, at which stood the shape of some 
colored man, motionless as though carved in ebony, faintly touched 
by the sheen of the binnacle lamp. I was in no humor to converse 
with the boatman. His stupid talk that afternoon in response to my 
questions had vexed me, and I was still angry with the fool, as I 
chose to think him, spite of the claims he had upon my kindness 
and gratitude. 

I put Helga’s hand under my arm, and we quietly patrolled the 
deck to leeward. Our conversation wholly concerned our position — 
it would only tease you to repeat it. There was nothing to suggest, 
no plan to propose ; for think, advise, scheme as we might, it could 
only come to this : that if the captain declined to part with us, then, 
unless the men took our side and insisted upon putting us aboard a 
passing ship, we must stop. But if the crew took our side, it would 
be mutiny with them ; aud bewilderingly disagreeable as our situa- 
tion was, preposterously and ridiculously wretched as it was, yet as- 
suredly it was not to be mended by a revolt among those dusky 
skins forward. 

Yet the fancy of stirring up the Malays to befriend us was in my 
mind as I walked with the girl. 

“ God forbid,” said I, “ that I should have a hand in it ; yet, for 
all that, I believe it is to be done. I had a short talk with Nakier 
to-day, and there was that in his questions and his manner which 
persuades me that the train is ready, and nothing wanting but the 
spark.” 

“ A mutiny is a terrible thing at sea,” said she ; “ and what would 
men like the crew of this ship stop at 2” 

“ Aye, nothing more terrible, Helga. But are we to be carried to 
the Cape 2” 

“The captain has no intention of putting into Santa Cruz,” said 
she. 

“ That we may be sure of. But does the fellow intend that you 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 24 ? 

shall pass week after week with no other apparel than what you 
stand up in ?” 

I was interrupted by Abraham sending a hurricane shout into the 
blackness forward for some hands to clew up the fore and main roy- 
als, and for others to lay aft and haul down the gaff-topsail. 

“ It’s agoing to blow to-night, Mr. Tregarthen,” he called across 
to me. 

“Yes; and you may see where it is coming from, too,” I replied, 
not knowing till then that he had observed us. 

In a few moments the silence that had hung upon the vessel, with 
nothing to disturb it but an occasional sob of water and the beating 
of canvas hollowing into the masts to the roll of the fabric, was 
broken by the strange howling noises raised by the colored seamen 
as they hauled upon the gear. 

“Get them sails furled, my lads !” bawled Abraham ; “ and the rest 
of ye lay aft and take this ’ere mizzen off her.” 

“ It is wonderful that the fellows should understand the man,” 
said I. 

“ There’s the captain !” exclaimed Helga, instantly halting, and 
then recoiling in a way that dragged me a pace back with her. 

He rose through the companion-hatch, his outline vaguely visible 
in the dim radiance sifting through the cabin skylight. Abraham 
addressed him. 

“ Quite right, Wise ; very wise of you, Wise !” he exclaimed. 
“ There is a marked fall in the barometer, and I perceive lightning 
in the north-east, with a deal of rugged cloud down there.” His 
shadowy form stepped to the binnacle, into which he peered a 
moment. “I think, Wise,” said he — and, to use a Paddyism, I 
could see the man’s fixed and singular smile in the oiliness of his 
accents — “ that you cannot do better than go forward and rouse 
up all hands. I can rely best upon my crew when the weather is 
quiet.” 

Abraham trudged forward, and a minute later I heard him thump- 
ing heavily on the fore-hatch, topping the blows with a boatswain’s 
hoarse roar of “ All hands shorten sail 1” 

“ The captain’s politeness,” I said, “ will end in making that Deal 
boatman sit at his feet.” 

“ He is afraid of his crew, perhaps,” answered Helga, “ and is be- 
having so as to make sure that the two men will stand by him 
should difficulties come.” 

“ It was a bad blow that sunk the fellows’ lugger, Helga. We 


248 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


might have sighted that steamer of to-day and be now homeward- 
bound at the rate of fourteen knots an hour.” 

“ And it is all my fault !” she cried, in tones impassioned by re- 
gret and temper. “ But for me, Hugh — ” 

I silenced her by taking her hand as it lay in my arm and press- 
ing it. She drew closer to me, with a movement caressing but 
wistful too, though finely and tenderly simple. 

I did not doubt that the captain perceived us ; nevertheless, he 
hung near the wheel, never coming farther forward than the com- 
panion-hatch, while we kept at the other end of the little poop, 
where the shadow of the port-wing of main-sail lay heavy. 

Shortly after Abraham had summoned the men, the decks were 
alive with sliding and gliding shapes, and the stillness of the ocean 
night was clamorous with parrot-like cries. The lightning had 
ceased, but the darkness was fast deepening, and overhead the stars 
were beginning to languish in the projected dimness of the growing 
mass of cloud that, now that there was no play of violet fire upon it, 
was indistinguishable in its own dumb, brooding obscurity. 

“ Whatever is to come will happen on a sudden,” said I. 

We neither of us cared to keep the deck now that the captain 
had arrived, and, descending the ladder, we entered the cabin. Un- 
der other conditions I should have been willing, and indeed anxious, 
to assist the crew, but now I was resolved not to touch a rope, to 
maintain and present as sullen a front as I could contrive, to hold 
apart with Helga, to mark my resentment by my behavior, and so, 
perhaps — but God knows I had no hope of it — to intimidate the 
fellow into releasing us by obliging him to understand that he had 
already gone a very great deal too far. There was much noise on 
deck; Mr. Jones was bawling from the forecastle, and Abraham 
from the waist, and the songs of the Malays might easily have 
passed for the cries of people writhing in pain. Apparently the 
captain was alarmed by the indications of the glass and the look of 
the weather in the north-east, and was denuding his little ship as 
speedily as might be. His own voice began to sound now, and, 
though it was perfectly distinguishable, there was nothing nasal, 
bland, or greasy about it. On the contrary, his roars seemed to pro- 
ceed from a pair of honest seadungs, as though what was nautical in 
him had been worked up by the appearance of the weather, and was 
proving too strong for the soapy exterior of his habitual manner. 

“ He can be natural when he forgets himself,” said I. 

“ It is quite possible that he swears at times,” said Helga. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


249 

“ One touch of nature in the fellow would make me feel almost 
comfortable,” I exclaimed. 

“ He is not a true sailor : he never could be natural for any 
length of time,” said Helga. 

The pattering of the naked feet of the crew was like the noise 
of a shower of rain. Helga seemed to be able to follow what was 
being done, as though she were on deck directing the crew. 

“ They have furled this sail — they are reefing that sail — now they 
are hauling down such and such a jib — now they are stowing the 
main-sail,” she would say, giving the canvas its proper names, and 
looking at me with a little smile in her liquid blue eyes, as though 
the interest in the sailors’ work made her forget our troubles. 

“ Be as nautical as you like with me,” said I. “ I love to hear 
you pronounce the strange, uncouth language of the sea ; but guard 
your lips before the captain. The more sailorly you are, the more 
he will admire you.” 

“What would make him hate me?” she exclaimed, with the light of 
the smile going out of her eyes, and her white brow contracting. 
“ How is he to be sickened, Hugh ?” 

“ Oh, what can you do, Helga ? What can a pretty girl do that 
will not heighten the passion of a man who has fallen in love with 
her?” 

“ Call me pretty, if you will,” said she, with a maidenly droop of 
her eyelids ; “ but do not speak of me as a girl with whom any- 
body has fallen in love.” 

“ By George !” said I, starting and heaving a long sigh, with a 
look at the clock, the hands of which were now at nine, “ the road 
to Holding gets longer and longer. But we shall measure it — we 
shall measure it yet, Helga !” I quickly added, heartily grieved by 
the sorrow that entered her face. 

“ What a strange dream has all this time been !” she half mur- 
mured, pressing her eyes. “My father stood by my side last night; 
I felt his kiss — oh, Hugh, it was colder than the salt-water outside !” 
She uttered an exclamation in Danish, with a little passionate shake 
of the head. 

“ I hope you are quite comfortable below !” exclaimed a much too 
familiar voice, and looking up I spied the long whiskers and smiling 
countenance of Captain Bunting framed in the open casement of 
the skylight. 

Helga rallied as if to a shock, and stiffened into marble, mo- 
tionless and with a hardening of her countenance that 1 should 


250 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


have thought impossible to the gentle, ingenuous prettiness of her 
face. 

“ I fear,” he continued, talking through the skylight, “ that we 
are in for some nasty weather ; but my bark is stripped and nearly 
ready for the affray. I am grieved not to be able to join you, Miss 
Nielsen. It is necessary that I should remain on deck. You are 
partaking of no refreshment. I will send Punmeamootty to you. 
Pray give him your orders.” 

His whiskers floated out into the obscurity like two puffs of 
smoke, and he called, but in genteel accents, for Helga was now list- 
ening, and he knew it, to Abraham to send Punmeamootty “ to wait 
upon his guests in the cabin.” A moment after his whiskers re- 
appeared. 

“ I have to beg, Miss Nielsen, that you will consider yourself 
mistress here. And before you withdraw to rest — and, whatever 
may happen, pray slumber securely, for I shall be watching the ship 
— may I entreat you to occupy Mr. Jones’s berth, which you will 
find so very much more airy and comfortable than the dark, con- 
fined steerage?” 

“ I am quite satisfied with my accommodation, thank you,” she 
answered, without looking up. 

He youthfully wagged his head in reproach of what his manner 
seemed to consider no more than an enchanting girlish capricious- 
ness, and adding, “ Well, I entreat you both to make yourselves 
thoroughly at home,” he disappeared. 

Punmeamootty arrived. He entered soundlessly as a spirit, and 
with the gliding movements that one could imagine of a phantom. 
I said to Helga, 

“Abraham’s philosophy shall be mine. My temper shall not pre- 
vent me from using our friend’s larder. .You asked just now what 
will sicken him. Let us eat and drink him up ! Punmeamootty, 
when is the gale going to burst ?” 

“ It will not be long, sah,” he answered, showing his teeth. 

“ Put the best supper you can upon the table. Have you nothing 
better than rum to drink ?” 

“ Dere is wine, sah.” 

“ Yes, and very poor wine, too. Have you no brandy ?” 

“ Yes, sah, de cap’n hab some choice brandy for sickness.” 

“ Put a bottle of it on the table, Punmeamootty, and be quick, 
like a good fellow as you are, to serve the food before this sweet 
little ship begins to kick up her heels.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


251 


He showed his teeth again, with a glance at the skylight, follow, 
ing it on with a short-lived look of deep interest at Helga, then 
slipped away. 

With wonderful nimbleness he had spread the cloth, and put 
ham, salt beef, biscuit, and such things upon the table. 

“ Now draw that cork !” said I. 

The pop of it brought the whiskers to the open skylight as if by 
magic. 

“ Quite right, quite right !” exclaimed the captain. “I hope, Miss 
Helga, that this repast is of your ordering ? What have you there, 
Punmearaootty ?” he suddenly cried, with excitement. “That is 
brandy, I believe?” 

“ I ordered it !” I called out, in a sullen voice. 

“You will handle it tenderly, if you please,” said he, with a trifle, 
of asperity in his speech. “ It is a fine cordial brandy, and I have 
but three bottles of it.” 

I returned no answer, and he vanished. 

“ Upon my word, I believe Abraham is right, after all !” said I, 
with a laugh. “ Now, Helga, to punish him, if the road to his sen- 
sibility lie through ham and beef.” 

She feigned to eat merely to please me, as I could see. Though 
I was not very hungry, I made a great business of sharpening my 
knife, and fell to the beef and ham with every appearance of avidity, 
not doubting that we should be furtively surveyed from time to 
time by the captain, who could peep at us unseen without trouble as 
he passed the skylight, and who could very well overhear the clatter 
of dishes, the sharpening of my knife and my calls to the steward, 
so silent did the night continue, as though there rested some great 
hush of expectancy upon the ocean. 

I filled a bumper of brandy-and-water, and exclaimed, in a loud voice: 

“ Here’s to our speedy release, Helga ! But if that is not to hap- 
pen, then here’s to the safest and swiftest passage this crazy old 
bucket is capable of making ! And here’s to proceedings hereafter 
to be taken 1” 

The colored steward stood looking on with a grin of wonder. 

“ Capital brandy, this, Punmeamootty !” I sung out, in accents that 
might have been beard upon the forecastle. “Another drop, if you 
please ! Thank you ! I will help myself.” 

A mere drop it was, for I had had enough ; but I took care by my 
posture to persuade an eye surveying me from above that I was not 
sparing the bottle. 


252 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ You may clear away, Punmeamootty ; and if you can find a cigar 
I shall feel obliged by your bringing it to me.” 

“ Well, and how are we getting on ?” exclaimed the captain, bend- 
ing his head into the skylight. 

“ We have supped, thank you,” I answered, haughtily and coldly. 
“ Punmeamootty, a cigar, if you please !” 

The captain’s head vanished. 

“ Me no sabbee where cap’n him keep his cigar,” said Punmea- 
mootty. 

“ Ransack his cabin !” said I, loudly. 

The fellow shook his head, but there was enjoyment in his grin, 
with an expression of elation in his eyes that borrowed a quality of 
fierceness from the singularly keen gleam which irradiated their 
dusky depths. I was about to speak, when Helga raised her hand. 

“ Hark !” she cried. 

I bent my ear, and caught a sound resembling the low moan of 
surf heard at a distance. 

w More than a capful of wind goes to the making of that noise,” 
said I. 

A bright flash of lightning dazzled upon the skylight and eclipsed 
the cabin lamjj with its blinding bluish glare. A small shock of 
thunder followed. I heard the captain cry out an order ; the next 
minute the skylight was hastily closed and a tarpaulin thrown over it. 

“ Bring me my oil-skins, Punmeamootty !” shouted the captain 
down the companion-way. The man ran on deck with the things. 

“ Can that be rain ?” cried Helga. 

Rain it was, indeed ! a very avalanche of wet charged with im- 
mense hailstones. The roar of the smoking discharge upon the 
planks was absolutely deafening. It lasted about a couple of min- 
utes, then ceased with startling suddenness, and you heard nothing 
but the surf-like moaning that had now gathered a deeper and a 
more thrilling note, mingled with the wild sound of sobbing in the 
scuppers and a melancholy hissing of wet as the water on the quar- 
ter-deck splashed from side to side to the light rolling of the bark. 
Yet fully another five minutes passed in quiet, while the growling of 
the thunder of the still distant storm-swept sea waxed fiercer and 
fiercer. It was as though one stood at the mouth of a tunnel and 
listened to the growing rattling and rumbling of a long train of 
freight-cars approaching in tow of a panting locomotive. 

Then in a breath the wind smote the bark, and down she leaned 
to it. So amazingly violent was the angle, I do most truthfully be- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


253 


lieve that for the space of some twenty or thirty seconds the bark 
lay completely on her beam ends, as much so as if she were bilged 
high and dry upon a shoal, and there was a dreadful noise of water 
pouring in upon her deck from over the submerged lee main-deck rail. 

Helga was to windward, and the table supported her, but the 
chair upon which I was seated broke away with me, and I fell 
sprawling upon my back amid a whole raffle of the contents of the 
table, which Punmeamootty had not yet removed. The full mess of 
it came headlong about me with a mighty smash ; the beef, the ham, 
the bottle of brandy — now shivered into a thousand pieces — the jam 
pots, the biscuits, the knives and forks — all these things I lay in the 
midst of, and such was the heel of the deck that I could not stir a 
limb. Helga shrieked. I cried out, “ I am not hurt ; I’ll rise when 
I can.” Some one was hoarsely bawling from the poop; but, what- 
ever the meaning of the yell might have been, it was immediately 
followed by a loud report resembling the blast of a twenty-four- 
pounder gun. “ There goes a sail !” I shouted. The vessel found 
life on being relieved of the canvas, whatever it was. There was a 
gradual recovery of her hull, and presently she was on a level keel, 
driving smoothly as a sleigh over a level plain of snow, but with such 
an infernal bellowing and hooting and ear-piercing whistling of wind 
accompanying her that there is nothing I can imagine to liken it to. 

I "waited awhile, and then, bidding Helga stay where she was, 
went on to the quarter-deck; but all between the rails was of a 
pitch darkness, with a sort of hoariness in the blackness on either 
hand outside, rising from the foam, of which the ocean was now one 
vast field. I mounted the poop-ladder, but was blinded in a mo- 
ment by the violence of the wind, that was full of wet, and was glad 
to regain the cabin; for I could be of no use, and there was no 
question to be asked nor answer to be caught at such a time. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

JOPPA IS IN EARNEST. 

It was about half-past nine when this gale took us, but such was 
the force and weight of it, so flattening and sheering was its scythe- 
like horizontal sweep, that no sea worth speaking of had risen till ten 
o’clock; and then, indeed, it was beginning to run high. All this 


254 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


while there had been no sound of human voices, but at this hour a 
command was delivered above our heads, and going on to the quar- 
ter-deck I dimly discerned the figures of men hauling upon the fore- 
braces ; but they pulled dumbly ; no song broke from them ; they 
were silent, as though in terror. A little later on I knew by the 
motions of the bark that she had been brought to the wind and lay 
hove-to. 

That few vessels would better know how to plunge and roll than 
this old Light of the World I might have guessed from her behav- 
ior in quiet weather when there was nothing but a slight swell to lift 
her. But I never could have conjectured how truly prodigious was 
her skill in the art of tumbling. She soared and sank as an empty 
cask might. She took every hollow with a shock that threatened 
to rend her bones into fragments, as though she had been hurled 
through the air from a mighty height; and when she swung up an 
acclivity, the sensation was that of being violently lifted, as by a bal- 
loon or by the grip of an eagle. Groans and cries rose from her in- 
terior as though she had a thousand miserable, perishing slaves — men, 
women, and children — locked up in her hold. 

“ This,” said I to Helga, “ is worse than the Anine .” 

“ Yet it was blowing harder on that Saturday night than it is 
now,” she answered, watching the mad oscillations of the cabin lamp 
with serene eyes and a mouth steadfast in expression. “ I have a 
greater dread of Captain Bunting’s smile,” she continued, “ than of 
any hurricane that can blow across the ocean.” She looked at the 
clock. “ He is certain to arrive shortly. He is sure to find some ex- 
cuse to torture me with his politeness. He will tease me to exchange 
my cabin. I think I will go to bed, Hugh.” 

There was little temptation to remain up. I put my hand under 
her arm to steady the pair of us, and we passed on to the quarter- 
deck, where I found the hatch that led to our sleeping-quarters shut. 
We lifted it, and looked into a blackness profounder than that of a 
coal-mine. On this I roared for Punmeamootty. I shouted four or 
five times at the top of my lungs, and then some voice bawled from 
cJver the rail of the deck above, “ What’s wrong down there?” Who 
it was I could not tell ; it was impossible to distinguish voices amid 
the hellish clamor of the wind roaring in the rigging with the sound 
of a tempest-swept forest. I took no notice, and bawled again for 
Punmeamootty, and, after a little, the poor colored wretch came out 
of the darkness into the sheen of the cabin-light that feebly touched 
the quarter-deck, crawling on his hands and knees. He was soaked 


THE KOMANCE OF A MONTH. 


255 


through, and, when he stood up, could scarcely keep his feet. In- 
deed, forward the seas were sweeping the decks in sheets, and each 
time the vessel lifted her bows the water came roaring in a fury of 
foam to the cuddy-front. 

We were forced to put the hatch on again to keep the seaf out of 
the ship till Punmeamootty came staggering out of the cuddy with 
a lantern. Helga then dropped below with amazing dexterity, and 
I handed the light down to her, requesting that she would hang it 
up and leave it burning, as I was in no mood to “ turn in ” just then, 
wishing to see more of the weather before resting, and to smoke a 
pipe. I put the hatch on and re-entered the cuddy, followed by 
Punmeamootty. 

“ You seemed half drowned,” said I. 

“ A sea knock me down, sah. Is dere danger, sah?” 

“I hope not,” I answered. “Do you feel equal to picking up 
that mess?” and I pointed to the broken china and bit of beef, and 
so on. 

He turned a terrified eye upon them, staggering and swaying 
wildly, and then, as though he had not heard my question, he ex- 
claimed, “ We all say dis storm comee tro’ cap’n being wicked 
man ! Tankee de Lor’ ! we hab no eat pork ! Tankee de Lor’ ! we 
hab no eat pork !” 

He bared his gleaming teeth, as though in the anguish of cold, 
and shook his small clinched fist at the skylight. I sat down and 
lighted a pipe, and having been somewhat chilled by waiting out in 
the wet of the quarter-deck for Punmeamootty to bring the lantern, 
I slided and clawed my way round to Captain Bunting’s locker for 
a bottle of rum that lay within. As I did this, the companion door 
opened, and down came the skipper. The wind and the wet had 
twisted his whiskers into lines like lengths of rope. I could have 
burst into a laugh at the sight of his singular face, framed in the 
streaming thatch and flannel ear-protectors of his sou’- wester. The 
water poured from his oil-skins as he came to a stand at the end of 
the table, grabbing it, and looking about him. 

“ What’s all that?” cried he, pointing with a fat forefinger to the 
mess on deck. This was addressed to Punmeamootty, but I an- 
swered, flinging the surliest note I could manage into my voice, 
which I had to raise into a shout, “ An accident. This is a beast of 
a ship, sir. No barge could make worse weather of a breeze of wind.” 

I let fall the lid of the locker and sat upon it, poising the bottle 
of rum, and blowing a great cloud with my pipe. 


256 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ Where is Miss Nielsen ?” he exclaimed. 

“Gone to bed,” I answered. “ Punmearaootty, reach me a glass 
out of that rack.” 

The man, in taking the tumbler, reeled to a violent heel of the 
deck, and let it fall. 

“ D — n, it,” roared the captain, “ you clumsy son of a hog ! What 
more damage is to be done?” His sudden passion made his fixed 
smile extraordinarily grotesque. “Get a basket and pick up that 
stuff, and bear a hand !” he thundered. “ Has Miss Helga a light?” 

“Yes,” I answered. “I have seen to that.” 

“ But she may fall — she may let the lantern drop !” 

“ She is a better sailor than you,” I called out ; “ she knows how 
to keep her feet. Punmeamootty ! a tumbler, if you please, before 
you begin picking up that stuff.” 

“ I must see that Miss Nielsen’s lantern is safe,” said the captain ; 
and he was coming forward as though to pass through the cuddy 
door. I sprang to my feet and confronted him on widely stretched 
legs. 

“No man,” said I, “enters Miss Nielsen’s sleeping quarters while 
she and I remain in this ship.” 

He stared at me with twenty emotions working in his face. His 
countenance then changed. I perceived him glance at the bottle of 
rum that I held by the neck, and that I was just in the temper to 
let him have fair between his eyes had he attempted to shove past 
me. I believe he thought I had been drinking. 

“ I can assure you,” he exclaimed, with a violent reaching out of 
his mind, so to speak, in the direction of his regular and familiar 
blandness, “ that Miss Nielsen’s privacy is as sacred to me as to you. 
Will you go below and see that her light is all right? It is a mat- 
ter that as much concerns your safety as ours.” 

Without answering him, I opened the locker, replaced the bottle, 
and continuing to puff out great clouds of smoke through the ex- 
citement under which I labored — for I had been prepared for a hand- 
to-hand struggle with him, and my heart beat fast to the resolution 
of my temper — I quitted the cuddy, with a loud call to Punmea- 
mootty to follow me and replace the hatch. 

Whether the co|ored steward put the hatch on, whether, indeed, he 
followed me as I bade him, I cannot tell. I found the lantern burn- 
ing bravely and swinging fiercely under the beam, and extinguished 
it, and lay down completely clothed, with the exception of my boots, 
shrewdly guessing there would be little sleep for me that night. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


257 


That it blew at any time as hard as it had when we were aboard 
the Anine I cannot say ; enough that the dreadful maddened motions 
of the old vessel made a truly hideous gale of wind of the weather. 
Again and again she would tumble off the head of a sea and fall 
headlong into the yawn of water at the base, heeling over as she fell 
till you would have believed the line of her masts were parallel with 
the horizon, and strike herself such a mighty blow when she got to 
the bottom that you listened, with a thumping heart, for a crackling 
and a rending noise of timbers to tell you that she was going to 
pieces like a child’s house of cards. It was impossible to sleep; 
twice I was flung from my bunk, and came very near to breaking a 
limb. I called to Helga, and found her awake. I asked her how 
she did ; but, silver-clear and keen as her voice was, I could not catch 
her answer. 

It is likely that towards the small hours of the morning I now 
and again snatched a few minutes of sleep. From one of these brief 
spells of slumber I was aroused by the blow of a sea that thrilled 
like an electric shock through every plank and fastening of the ves- 
sel, and to my great joy I observed, as I thought, the faint gray of 
dawn coloring the dim and weeping glass of the scuttle. I imme- 
diately pulled on my boots and made for the hatch, but the cover 
was on and the darkness was as deep as ever it had been at mid- 
night. I considered for a minute how I should make myself heard, 
and groping my way back to my berth I took a loose plank, or bunk- 
board as it is called, from out of the sea-bedstead, and with it suc- 
ceeded in raising such a thunder in the hollow cover that in a few 
minutes it was lifted. The homely, flat, ruddy-cheeked face of Jacob, 
his head clothed in a somewhat tattered yellow sou’-wester which 
he had probably borrowed from one of his colored mates forward, 
looked down upon me through the glimmering square of the aperture. 

“ Why, blowed, Mr. Tregarthen,” cried he, “ if Oi didn’t think the 
bark was ashore ! But ye’d have had to hammer much louder and 
much longer before escaping from that rat-trap, if it hadn’t been 
for me a-sheltering of moyself under this ’ere break.” 

It was a wild scene indeed to arrive on deck and suddenly view. 
Furious as was the behavior of the bark, I could have got no notion 
of the weight of the surge from her capers. A huge swelling, livid, 
frothing surface — every billow looking to rear to the height of the 
main-top, where it was shattered and blown into a snow-storm — a 
heaven of whirling soot : this, in brief, was the picture. The vessel, 
however, was undamaged aloft. She was lying hove-to under a 
17 


258 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


band of close-reefed top-sail, which glanced like a sheet of foam 
against the stooping dismal dusk of the sky. None of the dark- 
skinned crew was visible. Jacob roared in my ear that they had 
been half wild with fear during the night. 

“ There’s some sort of superstition a-woi*king in them,” he shouted ; 
“ they’ve been a-praying and a-praying horrible, arter their fashion. 
Lucky for the ship that she was snugged afore the storm busted. 
Them poor covies ain’t agoing to save their lives when the call 
comes for them to live or perish.” 

“ Who has the watch ?” said I. 

“ The mate,” he answered. 

I looked at my watch, and was astonished to find that it was 
after eight. I had believed the hour to be daybreak, but indeed it 
was surprising that any light at all should have had power to sift 
through that storm-laden sky. Helga at this moment showed in 
the hatch. I took her hand. She looked pale, but her mouth was 
firm as she swept the boiling, swollen scene with her gaze, holding 
the deck with feet that seemed to float above the planks. 

“ What a night it has been !” she cried. “ This is a bad ship for 
bad weather. Hour after hour I have been thinking that she was 
going to pieces !” 

I told Jacob to replace the hatch-cover, and the girl and I entered 
the cuddy, as it was impossible to converse in the open ; while, spite 
of the parallel on which we reeled, the weight of the wind carried an 
edge as of a Channel January blast in it. In the comparative shel- 
ter of the interior we were able to talk, and I told her how I had be- 
haved to the captain on the previous night. 

“ Nothing that we can do,” said she, “ can signify while this 
weather lasts.” 

“ No, indeed !” I exclaimed. “ We must now pray for the ship to 
live. Our leaving her is made a twopenny consideration of by this 
gale.” 

She rose to look at the telltale compass, and returned to my side 
with a look of concern and a sad shake of the head. 

“ This must end our dream of Santa Cruz,” said she. | 

“ It was an idle dream at the best,” I answered. 

“Unless it should result in disabling the bark!” she continued. 
She added, with a little passion, as she looked through the cuddy 
window on to the quarter-deck: “I wish all three masts would go 
overboard !” 

“ Leaving the hull sound,” said I. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


259 


“Yes, yes, leaving the hull sound. I would be content to roll 
about in this hateful vessel for a whole fortnight if I could be sure 
of being taken off at the end. Anything — anything to terminate this 
cruel, this ridiculous captivity !” 

As these words left her lips the captain came down the companion- 
steps. He paused on seeing us, as though he had supposed the cuddy 
empty, and was ashamed to be seen in that figure. The dried white 
salt lay like flour in his eyes ; his whiskers were mere rags of wet 
hair ; a large globule of salt-water hung at the end of his nose like 
a gem worn after the Eastern fashion. He struggled along to where 
we sat, and extended his hand to Helga. In his most unctuous man- 
ner, that contrasted ludicrously with his streaming oil-skins, he ex- 
pressed the hope that she had slept well, lamented the severity of 
the gale for her sake, but assured her there was no danger, that 
the bark was making noble weather of it, and that he expected the 
wind to moderate before noon. He held her hand while he spoke, 
despite her visible efforts to withdraw it from his grasp. He then 
addressed me. 

“ I have to apologize,” he exclaimed, “ for a little exhibition of 
temper last night. I employed an expletive which I am happy to 
think has not escaped me for years. The provocation was great — 
the anxieties of the gale — the loss of a foretop-mast-staysail — the 
ruined crockery on the deck — a bottle of my valuable cordial brandy 
wasted — Punmeamootty’s somewhat insolent stupidity — the most 
pious mind might be reasonably forgiven for venting itself in the 
language of the forecastle under the irritation of so mariy trials ! 
But I offer you my apologies, Mr. Tregarthen, and I hope, sir, that 
you slept well !” 

I answered him coldly and with averted eyes, being now resolved, 
to persevere in my assumption of contemptuous dislike, which I also 
desired he should believe was animated by a determination to punish 
him when I got him ashore. 

He went to his cabin to refresh himself, first taking care to inform 
us, with a large smile, that he had spent the whole of the night on 
deck in looking after the vessel, whose safety, he exclaimed, with a 
significant leer at Helga, “ has been rendered extraordinarily precious 
to me since Monday last.” 

I now told her — for I had forgotten the incident — how our oily 
friend had whipped out with a small oath on the previous night. 

“ So, then, he has humanized himself to you ?” said she, laugh- 
ing. 


260 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“It is the only symptom of sincerity 1 1 have observed in him,” I 
exclaimed. 

He reappeared presently, soaped, shining, and smiling, with dried 
whiskers floating, smoke-like, on either hand a purple satin cravat. 
But the breakfast was to be a poor one that morning. The cook, it 
seems, could not keep the galley fire alight, and we had to make the 
best meal we could off a tin of preserved meat, and some biscuit 
and wine-and-water. The captain was profusely apologetic to Helga, 
and unctuously ascribed the poverty of the meal to me, who, he said 
with an air of jocosity, was the cause of half a ham, and an excellent 
piece of beef being rendered unfit for the table. I made no answer 
to this. Indeed, Helga and I sat like mutes at that table ; but the 
captain talked abundantly, almost wholly addressing himself to the 
girl. In truth, it was now easy to see that the unfortunate man was 
head over ears in love with her. His gaze was a prolonged stare of 
admiration, and he seemed to find nothing in her behavior to chill or 
repel him. On the contrary, the more she kept her eyes downward 
bent, the colder and harder grew her face, the more taciturn she was 
— again and again not vouchsafing even a monosyllabic answer to 
him— the more he warmed towards her, the more he encroached in 
his behavior. If' he had any sensibility, it was armor-clad by com- 
placency. I never could have believed that vanity had such power 
as I here found to sheath so impenetrably the human understanding. 
Well, thought I to myself, all this means a voyage for Helga, if not 
for me. Assuredly he’ll not part with her this side of the Cape, and 
the fool’s hope, I thought, as I let my eyes rest on the grinning mask 
of his countenance, is that he will have won her long before he 
reaches the parallel of thirty-four degrees south, though he has to 
make the most of every calm, and of every gale of wind to achieve 
his end. 

I will not attempt to follow the hours of that day. They were 
little more than a repetition of our experiences in the Anine. The 
captain came and went, but for the most part Helga and I remained 
in the cabin. The gale somewhat moderated at noon, as the skipper 
had predicted, but it still blew too hard to make sail on the ship, and 
she lay hove-to in the trough, sickening me to the inmost recesses of 
my soul with her extravagant somersaults and prodigious falls and 
upheavals. Somewhere about half-past four that afternoon, on look- 
ing through the cuddy-window, I saw Jacob smoking a pipe in the 
shelter of the projection of the captain’s and mate’s cabins. I thought 
I would keep him company, and having cut up a pipe of tobacco for 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


261 


myself, I quitted Helga, who showed a disposition to doze, and joined 
the boatman. 

The wind made a great howling aloft, and the thunderous wash 
of the breaking waters against the vessel’s side put a wild note of 
storm into the shrieking and hissing and hooting of the rigging. 
But it was fairly calm in the recess, and we conversed very easily. 
I asked Jacob, while I pointed over the lee -rail at the huge, dark- 
green, froth-laced backs of the seas rushing from the ship in head- 
long race, what would be his thoughts of this weather if he were 
aboard the Early Morn. 

“ Why, the lugger ’ud be doing as well as this here bucket, any 
way,” said he. 

“ Captain Bunting,” said T, “ will think that you are not half grate- 
ful enough for your deliverance.” 

“ He is a proper gentleman !” he exclaimed. “ Abraham swears 
there ain’t the likes of him afloat for politeness ; but his crew b’ent 
of Abey’s mind, I’m afraid. Looks to me as if there’s going to be 
trouble.” 

“ Anything fresh happened ?” I asked. 

“ It’s all along of this matter of sarving out pork to them chaps 
as won’t eat it, Mr. Tregarthen. The mate gave ’em pork again to- 
day. There ain’t no galley fire alight, so it’s all the same to them 
colored chaps whether it be pork or beef. But it’s the principle of 
it what’s a-sticking in their gizzards. Nakier says to me, ‘ It would 
be allee de same if de water boil,’ says he, ‘ for it is eider pork or no 
meat,’ by which he sinnified that if so be as it was fine weather and 
the galley fire goin’, the men’s dinner to-day ’ud be pork or nothen. 
Now, Mr. Tregarthen, Oi allow that they don’t mean to keep all on 
enduring of this here treatment.” 

“ What have you noticed to make you suppose this ?” said I, with 
a glance along the deserted decks, dark with sobbing wet, and often 
shrouded forwards by vast showers of flying spray. 

“ Well,” he answered, “ all the darkies has been a-sitting below, 
saving the chap at the wheel, there being nothen for them to do on 
deck. I was in the fok’sle when Nakier comes down and tells the 
men that it was to be pork again. I couldn’t understand him, for he 
spoke his own language, but guessed what was up when I heerd the 
hullabaloo his words raised. They all began to sing out together 
in a sort of screeching voice like the row made by a crowd of wom- 
en a-quarrelling and a-pulling the hair out of each other’s heads up 
a hallev. Some skipped about in their rage as though there was a 


262 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


fiddle going. One chap, him with a face like a decayed lemon, he 
outs with his knife and falls a-stabbing of the atmosphere ; and Oi 
tell ye, Mr. Tregarthen, when I saw that I just drawed my legs up 
into my bunk and tried to make myself as little as possible with the 
hope of escaping his hobservation, for, damme ! thought I, if that 
there article’s a-going to run amuck, as I’ve heerd tell the likes of 
him is in the habit of doing, strike me dark, thinks Oi, if I ben’t the 
fust man he’ll fall foul on !” 

“ What was said ?” I asked. 

“ Why, ask yourself the question, sir. What do monkeys say 
when they start a-yelling ? Who’s to know what they said ?” 

“How do you know, then, that it was the ' serving-out of pork 
again that excited them ?” said I. 

“ Whoy, that there Nakier told me so arterwards.” 

“ Ha !” I exclaimed ; “ and for how long did they go on shriek- 
ing, as you say, and brandishing their knives ?” 

“ It was over wonderful soon,” he answered. “ Nakier looked on 
whilst they was all a-shouting together, then said something, and it 
was like blowing the head off a pint o’ ale — nothen remained but 
flatness. They just stood and listened whilst Nakier spouted, and 
ye should ha’ seen ’em a-nodding and a-grimacing, and brandishing 
their arms and slapping their legs; but they never said nothen; 
they just took and listened. Tell ’ee, Mr. Tregarthen, the suddenness 
of it, and the looks of ’em, was something to bring the pusperation 
out of the pores of a Polar bear.” 

“ What does Abraham think ?” said I. 

“ Whoy, I dunno how it is, he don’t seem to obsarve — appears to 
find nothen to take to heart. He’s growed a bit consequential, be- 
ing now what the skipper would call a orficer ; and though he sleeps 
forrard his feelings is aft. ’Tis mere growling, he thinks, with the 
fellows. But there’s raoren’t than that,” said he, striking a match 
and catching the flame of it in his clasped hand, and lighting his 
pipe as easily as if there were not a breath of air stirring. 

“ The lunatic of a captain has eyes in his head,” said I, thinking 
aloud rather than conversing. “ If he can’t see the mischief his mad 
notion of conversion is breeding, it is not for me to point it out. In 
fact, I heartily wish the Malays would seize the bark and sail her to 
Madeira or the Canaries. Is it not abominable that Miss Nielsen 
and I should be carried away to the Cape of Good Hope against our 
will by that long - whiskered rogue?” signifying the captain by a 
backward motion of my head at the cabin. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


263 


“ Abraham was a-telling me about this here traverse. The skip- 
per’s gone and fallen in love with the young lady, ain’t he ?” said 
Jacob, with a grin overspreading his flat face. 

“Yes,” said I, “and hopes by keeping her aboard to win her 
heart. The dolt!” 

“ Dunno about dolt , sir,” exclaimed Jacob. “ She’s a nice-looking 
young gal, is Miss Nielsen, and, I allow, just the sort of wife as a 
ship-master would live heasy vith.” 

“ You argue as vilely as Abraham,” said I, looking at him angrily. 
“ Will you pretend that this captain is not acting outrageously in 
detaining the young lady on board his ship — imprisoning her, in 
short — for that is what it comes to ?” 

A little look of intelligence gave a new expression to the flat-faced 
fellow’s smile as he respectfully surveyed me. 

“ Well, sir — I don’t blame you, I can’t blame you,” he exclaimed. 
“ I’ve kep’ company myself. I was for five year along with as nice 
a gal as was ever seen in Deal, a-courting and a-courting, and always 
too pore to git spliced. I know what the passion of jealousy is. She 
took up with a corporal of marines, and, I tell ye, I suffered. It came 
roight, then it went wrong again, and it ended in her marrying a 
measly little slice of a chap, named Billy Tusser, who’d saved a bit 
out o’ sprattin’ and hovellin’. I can't blame ’ee, sir.” 

It was not a matter to pursue with this worthy man, whose small 
intelligence lay too deep to be worth boring for ; so I dropped the 
subject, and talked afresh of the colored crew, and continued linger- 
ing till.I could not have told how long our chat lasted. Though the 
gale was much less hard than it had blown down to noon, it was still 
a very violent wind, and the sea as wild as ever it had been, with the 
shadow of the evening now to add a darker tinge of gloom to the 
whirl of stooping, sooty heaven, under which every head of surge 
broke like a flash of ghastly light. The vessel was a strangely deso- 
late picture — not a living creature to be seen forward, the decks half- 
drowned, water sluicing white off the forecastle rim, or blowing up 
into the wind from off that raised deck in bursts of crystalline smoke, 
like corkscrew leapings of fine snow to the hurl of a blast roaring 
across a wintry moor. The slack gear curved black with wet ; again 
and again the vessel would pitch into the bow sea till the spreading 
froth made by the massive plunge of her round bows rose to her 
forecastle rail. I had had enough of the cold and the wet ; the cheer- 
less picture of the bark and the ocean, too, was unspeakably depress- 
ing, and, with a glance round at the near horizon of broken, creaming 


264 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


waters on which nothing showed, I bestowed a nod of farewell on 
Jacob and re-entered the cuddy. 

Captain Bunting was sitting close to Helga. The light was so 
weak in this interior that I had to peer a little to make sure that it 
was the captain, for the dim figure might well have been the mate’s. 
Helga was at the extreme end of the locker, as though she had un- 
easily worked her way from his side while they sat ; but he had fol- 
lowed, and was now close, and her next and only step to get rid of 
him must be to rise. He was addressing her very earnestly when I 
entered ; his whiskers floated from his cheeks as he bent towards her. 
Charged as the cuddy was with the complaining sounds of the la- 
boring fabric, speech was very easy within it, nor was it necessary 
to raise the voice. Indeed, the interior had the effect of a hush 
upon my ears, coming as I did fresh from the shriek and thunder 
of the weather out on deck. 

On seeing me the captain instantly broke off, sat up, and called 
out, 

“Well, and how are things looking on deck?” 

Helga rose and went to the little window against the door. 

“ The weather could not be worse,” I answered, with the air and 
tone of sullenness I had resolved on. “Your ship is too old and 
squab for such a conflict.” 

“ She is old, but she is a stout ship,” he answered. “ She will be 
afloat when scores of what you might consider beauties have van- 
ished.” 

“ I think not,” said I, looking towards Helga, and wondering what 
the man had been saying to her. 

“Let us hope,” he exclaimed, lifting a great pilot-coat from the 
locker and struggling into it, “ that the necessity for your remaining 
here will not last very much longer. I should have expected hand- 
somer treatment at your hands, Mr. Tregarthen.” 

“ I do not know what you can find to base such an expectation 
on,” I cried. “ Your detention of us is cruel, and, as I hope and be 
lieve, punishable. But there is no good in discussing that matter 
with you here and now. I have merely to beg that we may be as 
strangers while we are so unfortunate as to be together in the same 
ship.” 

He drew his sou’-wester down upon his head, surveying me mean- 
while ; but I witnessed no malevolence in his regard ; indeed, I may 
say no trace of temper. His enduring smile lay broad with such ex- 
pansion, indeed, as gave an air of elation to his face. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


265 


“ No,” said he, wagging his head, while he slipped the elastic band 
of his sou’-wester behind his whiskers, “ we will not live together as 
strangers, as you desire. Brother!} 7 love is still practicable, and 
nothing that you can say or do, ray young friend, shall dissuade 
me from cultivating it. That we shall be long together I do not 
believe,” he added, with a significance that astonished me and sent 
my eyes askant at Helga, whose back was still upon us. “ Mean- 
while endeavor to be contented. To have content is to have all, and 
to have all is to be richer than the richest.” 

He inclined his sou’-westered head in an odd benedictory gro- 
tesque nod or bow, and, with a half-pause in his manner as though 
he would call some speech to Helga, turned on his heel and went on 
deck. 

“ What has he been saying, Helga 3” 

She looked round, and finding the captain gone, came to my side 
and locked her fingers upon my arm. She had drawn to me with a 
pale face, but the blood flushed her throat and cheeks as she let 
fall her eyes from mine. I had never before thought her so sweet 
as she showed at that moment. She was without a hat, and her 
short fair hair glimmered on her head in the gathering gloom of the 
evening with a sheen like the glancing of bright amber. My mem- 
ory gave me a thought full of beauty — a wild caprice of sentiment 
at such a time ! — 

The freshness of new hay is on thy hair, 

And the withdrawing innocence of home 
Within thine eye. 

“ What has he been saying to you, Helga 3” 

“ That he loves me,” she answered, now fixing her artless, tender 
gaze upon me, though her blush lingered. 

“A fine time to tell you such a thing ! Does that sort of sea-cap- 
tain wait for a gale of wind to propose to a girl 3” I exclaimed, with 
a sudden irritation of jealousy tingling through me, and I looked at 
her closely and suspiciously. 

“ I wanted to be angry, Hugh, but could not,” said she. “ I hate 
the man, yet I could not be angry with him. He spoke of his 
daughter — he did not talk through his nose — he did not cant at all. 
Is ‘ cant ’ the right word 3 I felt sorry ; I had not the heart to 
answer him in rudeness, and to have risen and left him while he 
was speaking would have been rudeness.” 

I made a slight effort to disengage my arm from her clasp. 


266 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ He told me — no doubt you heard him,” said I — “ he told me 
he believed there would be no necessity to keep me long. He is a 
clever man — a shrewd man. Well, after this I shall believe in all 
the proverbs about women.” 

“ What do you mean, Hugh ?” she exclaimed, in a startled voice, 
letting fall her hands and staring at me. 

“ What do you mean ?” 

“ Why, that I am sorry for the man, and hate him.” 

“ Oh, if you keep sorry long you will soon cease to hate him.” 

“ No, no !” she cried, with a little passion, making as if to clasp 
my arm afresh and then shrinking. “ I could not help his coming 
here and speaking to me.” 

“ That is true.” 

“ Oh, Hugh, why are you angry ?” 

Her gaze pleaded, her lips twitched, even as she looked at me her 
blue eyes filled. Her grieved, pretty face — her wistful, tender, tear- 
ful face must have transformed my temper into impassioned pity, 
into self-reproach, into keen self-resentment, even had there been 
solid ground for vexation. I took her hand and lifted it to my lips. 

“ Forgive me, Helga ; we have been much together. Our asso- 
ciation and your father’s dying words make me think of you as 
mine until — until — the long and short of it is, Helga, I am jealous!” 

An expression of delight entered and vanished from her face. 
She stood thoughtfully looking down on the deck. Just then Pun- 
meamootty entered to prepare the table for supper, and Helga again 
went to the cabin window and stood looking out, lightly, with un- 
conscious ease and grace, swaying to the stormy heave of the deck, 
with her hands clasped behind her in a posture of meditation. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

A NIGHT OF HORROR. 

The gale broke on the morning of Thursday, November 2d. The 
compacted heaven of cloud scattered in swelling cream - colored 
masses ; the sun shone out of the wide lakes of moist blue, and the 
sea turned from the cold and sickly gray of the stormy hours into a 
rich sapphire, with a high swell and a plentiful chasing of foaming 
billows. By four o’clock in the afternoon the ocean had smoothed 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


267 


down into a tropical expanse of quietly rising and falling waters, 
with the hot sun sliding westward, and the bark stemming the sea 
afresh under all cloths which could be piled upon her, the wind a 
small breeze, about west, and the sea-line a flawless girdle. 

The evening that followed was one of quiet beauty. There was a 
young moon overhead, with power enough to drop a little trickling 
of silver into the dark sea under her ; the clouds had vanished, and 
the stars shone brightly with a very abundant showering of meteoric 
lights above the trucks of the silent, swaying masts. 

As we paced the deck the captain joined us. Short of going to 
our respective cabins there was no means of getting rid of him ; so 
we continued to patrol the planks, with him at Helga’s side, talking, 
talking — oh, Heaven ! how he talked ! His manner was distressing- 
ly caressing. Helga kept hold of my arm, and meanwhile I, true to 
that posture I had maintained for the past three days, listened or 
sent my thoughts elsewhere, rarely speaking. In the course of his 
ceaseless chatter he struck upon the subject of his crew and their 
victuals, and told us he was sorry that we were not present when 
Nakier and two other colored men came aft into the cuddy after he 
had taken sights and gone below. 

“ I am certain,” he exclaimed, smiting his leg, “ that I have made 
them reflective ! I believe I could not mistake. Nakier, in particular, 
listened with attention, and looked at his mates with an expression 
as though conviction were being slowly borne in upon him.” 

I pricked up my ears at this, for here was a matter that had been 
causing me some anxious thought, and I broke away from my sul- 
len, resentful behavior to question him. 

“ What brought the men aft ?” 

“The same tiresome story,” he answered, speaking loudly, and 
seemingly forgetful of, or indifferent to, the pair of yellow ears which, 
I might warrant him, were thirstily listening at the helm. “ They 
ask for beef, for beef, for nothing but beef, and I say yes — beef one 
day, pork another ; beef for your bodies and pork for your souls. I 
shall conquer them ; and what a triumph it will be ! Though I 
should make no further progress with them, yet I could never feel 
too grateful for a decisive victory over a gross imbecile superstition 
that, like a shutter, though it be one of many, helps to keep out the 
light.” 

He then went on to tell us what he had said, how he had rea- 
soned, and I shall not soon forget the unctuous, self-satisfied chuckle 
which broke from the folds of his throat as he paused before asking 


268 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


Helga what she thought of that as an example of pure logic. I lis- 
tened, wondering that a man who could talk as he did should be 
crazy enough to attempt so perilous an experiment as the attempt- 
ing to win his crew over to his own views of religion by as dangerous 
an insult as his fanatical mind could have lighted upon. It was the 
more incomprehensible to me in that the fellow had started upon his 
crude missionary scheme when there were but two whites in the ship 
to eleven believers in the Prophet. 

I waited until his having to fetch breath enabled me to put in a 
word. I then briefly and quietly related what had passed in the 
forecastle as described to me by Jacob Minnikin. 

“ And what then, Mr. Tregarthen ?” said he, and I seemed to catch 
a sneer threading, so to speak, his bland utterance ; the moon gave 
but little light as I have said, and I could not see his face. “ When 
a man starts on the work of converting, he must not be afraid.” 

“Your men have knives — they are devils, so I have heard, when 
aroused — you may not be afraid, but you have no right to provoke 
peril for us,” I said. 

“ The cockswain of a life-boat should have a stout heart,” he ex- 
claimed. “Miss Nielsen, do not be alarmed by your courageous 
friend’s apprehension. My duty is exceedingly simple. I must do 
what is right. Right is divinely protected,” and I saw by the pose 
of his head that he cast his eyes up at the sky. 

I nudged Helga as a hint not to speak, just breathlessly whisper- 
ing, “ He is not to be reasoned with.” 

It was a little before ten o’clock that night when the girl retired 
to her cabin. The captain, addressing her in a simpering, lover-like 
voice, had importuned her to change her cabin. She needed to grow 
fretful before her determined refusals silenced him. He entered his 
berth when she had gone, and I took my pipe to enjoy a quiet smoke 
on deck. After the uproar of the past three days, the serenity of 
the night was exquisitely soothing. The moon shone in a curl of 
silver; the canvas soared in panid visible spaces starward; there 
was a pleasant rippling sound of gently-stirred waters alongside, and 
the soft westerly night-wind fanned the cheek with the warmth of 
an infant’s breath. The decks ran darkling forwards; the shadow 
of the courses flung a dye that was deeper than the gloom of the 
hour between the rails, and nothing stirred save the low-lying stars 
which slipped up and down past the forecastle rail under the crescent 
of the foresail as the bark courtesied. 

Nevertheless, though I could not see the men, I heard a delicate 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


269 


sound of voices proceeding from the block of darkness where the 
forecastle front lay. Mr. Jones had charge of the watch, and, on my 
stepping aft to the wheel, I found Jacob grasping the spokes, having 
relieved the helm at four bells — ten o’clock. He was not to be ac- 
costed while on that duty ; and my dislike of the mate had not been 
lessened by the few words which had passed between us since the 
day -when the Cape steamer had gone by, and by my observation of 
his fawning behavior to the captain. I briefly exclaimed that it was 
a fine night, received some careless, drowsy answer from him, and, 
with pipe between my lips, lounged lonely on the lee side of the deck, 
often overhanging the rail, and viewing the sea-glow as it crept by, 
with my mind full of Helga, of my home, of our experiences so far, 
and of what might lie before us. 

I was startled out of a fit of musing by the forecastle bell ringing 
five. The clear, keen chimes floated like an echo from the sea, and 
I caught a faint reverberation of them in the hollow canvas. It was 
half-past ten. I knocked the ashes out of my pipe, and going on to 
the quarter-deck, dropped through the hatch. 

The lantern swinging in the corridor between the berths was burn- 
ing. I lightly called to Helga to know if all was well with her, but 
she was silent, and, as I might suppose, asleep. I put out the light, 
as my custom now was, and, partially unclothing myself in the dark, 
got into my bunk and lay for a little watching the dance of a phan- 
tom star or two in the dim black round of the scuttle close against 
my head, sleepily wondering how long this sort of life was to con- 
tinue, what time was to pass, and how much was to happen before I 
should be restored to the comfort of my own snug bedroom at 
home ; and thus musing — too drowsy, perhaps, for melancholy — I 
fell asleep. 

I was awakened by some one beating heavily upon the bulkhead 
of the next-door cabin. 

“ Mr. Tregarthen ! Mr. Tregarthen !” roared a voice ; then thump ! 
thump ! went the blows of a massive fist or handspike. “ For Gawd 
a’mighty’s sake wake up and turn out! there’s murder a -doing! 
Which is your cabin ?” 

I recognized the voice of Abraham, disguised as it was by horror 
and by the panting of his breath. 

The exclamation, “ There's murder a-doing /” collected my wits in a 
flash, and I was wide-awake and conscious of the man’s meaning ere 
he had fairly delivered himself of his cry. 

“ I am here — I will be with you !” I shouted, and, without pausing 


270 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


further to attire myself, dropped from my bunk and made with out- 
stretched hands for the door, which I felt for and opened. 

It was pitch dark in this passage between the cabins, without even 
the dim gleam the port-hole in the berth offered to the eye to rest on. 

“ Where are you, Abraham ?” I cried. 

“ Here, sir !” he exclaimed, almost in my ear ; and lifting my hand 
I touched him. 

“ The crew’s up !” he cried. “ They’ve killed the mate, and by 
this time, I allow, the cap’n’s done for.” 

“ Where’s Jacob?” 

“ Gawd, He only knows, sir !” 

“ Are you armed ? Do you grip anything ?” 

“Nothen, nothen. I run without stopping to arm myself. I’ll 
tell ye about it — but it’s awful to be a-talking in this here blackness 
with murder happening close by.” 

He still panted as from heavy recent exertion, and his voice fal- 
tered as though he were sinking from a wound. 

“ What is it ?” cried the clear voice of Helga from her berth. 

“ Open your door !” I said, knowing that it was her practice to 
shoot the bolt. “All is darkness here. Let us in — dress yourself 
by feeling for your clothes — the Malays have risen upon the captain 
and mate — it may be our turn next, and we must make a stand in 
your cabin. Hush !” 

In the interval of her quitting her bunk to open the door, I strained 
my ears. Nothing was to be heard save near and distant straining- 
noises rising out of the vessel as she heeled on the long westerly 
swell. But then we were deep down, with two decks for any noise 
made on the poop to penetrate. 

“The door is open,” said Helga. 

I had one hand on Abraham’s arm, and feeling with the other, I 
guided him into Helga’s berth, the position of which, as he had never 
before been in this part of the vessel, he could not have guessed. I 
then closed the door and bolted it. 

“ Dress yourself quickly, Helga !” said I, talking to her in the 
mine-like blindness of this interior that was untouched by the star or 
two that danced in her cabin window as in mine. 

“ Tell me what has happened !” she exclaimed. 

“ Speak, Abraham !” said I. 

“Lor’, but Oi don’t seem able to talk without a light!” he an- 
swered. “Ain’t there no lantern here? If there’s a lantern, I’ve 
got three or four loocifers in my pocket.” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


271 


“ Hist !” I cried. “ I hear footsteps.” 

We held our breath: all was still. Some sound had fallen upon 
my ear. It resembled the slapping of planks with naked feet to my 
fancy, that had been terrified by Abraham’s sudden horrible report, 
before thefe was time for my muscles and nerves to harden into full 
waking strength. 

“What d’ye hear?” hoarsely whispered Abraham. 

“ It was imagination. Ilelga, can we light the lantern ?” 

She answered yes — she was ready. 

“ Strike a match, Abraham, that I may see where the lantern 
hangs !” said I. 

He did so, holding the flame in his fist. I opened the door, 
whipped out, took down the lantern and darted in again, bolting the 
door anew with a thrill of fear following upon the haste I had made 
through imagination of one of those yellow-skins crouching outside 
with naked knife in hand. I swiftly lighted the lantern, and placed 
it in Helga’s bunk. Abraham was of an ashen paleness, and I knew 
my own cheeks to be bloodless. 

“Ought we to fear the crew?” cried Helga. “ We have not 
wronged them. They will not want our lives.” 

“ Dorn’t trust ’em, dorn’t trust ’em !” exclaimed Abraham. “ Ain’t 
there nothen here to sarve as weapons ?” he added, rolling his eyes 
around the cabin. 

“ What is the story ? Tell it now, man, tell it !” I cried, in a voice 
vehement with nerves. 

He answered, speaking low, very hastily and hoarsely : “ Oi’d gone 
below at eight bells. Oi found Nakier haranguing some of the men 
as was in the fok’sle ; but he broke off when he see me. I smoked 
a pipe, and then tarned in and slep’ for an hour or so ; then awoke 
and spied five or six of the chaps a-whispering together up in a cor- 
ner of the fok’sle. They often looked moy way, but there worn’t 
loight enough to let ’em know that my eyes was open, and I lay se- 
cretly a-watching ’em, smelling mischief. Then a couple of ’em went 
on deck, and the rest lay down. Nothen happened for some time. 
Meanwhile Oi lay woide awake, listening and watching. ’Twas 
about seven bells, I reckon, when some one — Oi think it was Nakier — 
calls softly down through the hatch, and instantly all the fellows, 
who as I could ha’ swore was sound asleep, dropped from their 
hammocks like one man, and the fok’sle was empty. I looked 
round to make sure that it were empty, then sneaks up and looks aft 
with my chin no higher than the coaming. I heered a loud shriek, 


2*72 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


and a cry of ‘ Oh, God ! Oh, God ! Help ! Help !’ and now, guessing 
what was happening, and believing that the tastin’ of blood would 
drive them fellows mad, and that Oi should be the next if Jacob 
worn’t already gone, him being at the wheel, as I might calculate by 
his not being forrard, Oi took and run, and here Oi am.” 

He passed the back of his hand over his brow, following the ac- 
tion with a fling of his fingers from the wrist ; and, indeed, it was 
now to be seen that his face streamed with sweat. 

“Do you believe they have murdered the captain?” cried Helga. 

“ I dorn’t doubt it — I carft doubt it. There seemed two gangs 
of ’em. Oi run for my life, and yet I see two gangs,” answered 
Abraham. 

“ Horrible !” exclaimed the girl, looking at me with fixed eyes, yet 
she seemed more shocked than frightened. 

“ Did not I foresee this ?” I exclaimed. “ Where were your senses, 
man — you who lived among them, ate and drank with them? It 
would be bad enough if they were white men ; but how stands our 
case, do you think, in a ship seized by savages who have been made 
to hate us for our creed and for the color of our skins ?” 

“Hark!” cried Helga. 

We strained our hearing, but nothing was audible to me saving 
my heart, that beat loud in my ears. 

“ I thought I heard the sound of a splash,” she exclaimed. 

“ If they should ha’ done for my mate, Jacob !” cried Abraham. 
“As the Lord’s good, ’twill be too hard. Fust wan, then another, 
and now nowt but me left of our little company as left Deal but a 
day or tew ago, as it seems when Oi looks back.” 

“ Are we to perish here like poisoned rats in a hole ?” said I. “ If 
they clap the hatch-cover on, what’s to become of us ?” 

“ Who among them can navigate the ship ?” asked Helga. 

“ Ne’er a one,” replied Abraham ; “ that I can tell ’ee from recol- 
lecting of the questions Nakier’s asted me from toime to toime.” 

“But if the body of them should come below,” cried I, “and 
force that door — as easily done as blowing out that light there — are 
we to be butchered with empty hands, looking at them without a lift 
of our arms, unless it be to implore mercy? Here are two of us — 
Englishmen ! Are we to be struck down as if we were women ?” 

“ There are three of us ?” said Helga. 

“ What are our weapons ?” I exclaimed, wildly sweeping the little 
hole of a cabin with my eyes. “ They have their knives !” 

“ Give me the handling of ’em one arter the other,” said Abraham, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


273 


fetching a deep breath, and then spitting on his hands, “ and I’ll take 
the whole ’leven whilst ye both sit down and look on. But all of 
them at wanst — all dronk with rage, and snapping round a man as 
if he was a sheep and they wolves” — he breathed deeply again, 
slowly shaking his head. 

“ The planks in that bunk are loose,” said I ; “ but what can we 
do with boards?” 

“ Hugh, I will go on deck !” suddenly exclaimed Helga. 

“ You ?” cried I. “ No, indeed ! You will remain here. There 
must be two of us for them to deal with before the third can be 
come at !” 

“ I will go on deck !” she repeated. “ I have less cause to fear 
them than you. They know that I am acquainted with navigation 
— they have always looked at me with kindness in their faces. Let 
me go and talk to them !” 

She made a step to the door — I gripped her arm, and brought her 
to my side and held her. 

“ What is to be done is for us two men to do !” said I. “ We 
must think, and we must wait.” 

“ Hugh, let me go !” she cried. “ I am certain they will listen to 
me, and I shall be able to make terms. Unless there be a navigator 
among them, what can they do with the ship in this great ocean?” 
She struggled, crying again : “ Let me go to them, Hugh !” 

“Dorn’t you do nothen of the sort, sir!” exclaimed Abraham. 
“What’d happen? They’d tarn to and lock her up until they’d 
made an end of you and me, and then she’d be left alone aboard 
this wessel — alone, I mean, with eleven yaller savages. Gawd pre- 
serve us ! If you let go of her, sir, Oi shall have to stop the road.” 

There was something of deliberateness in his speech : his English 
spirit was coming back with the weakening of the horror that had 
filled him when he first came rushing below. 

Some one knocked lightly on the door. At the same instant my 
eye was taken by the glance of lamp or candle flame in the opening 
in the bulkhead overlooking the narrow passage. 

“Hush !” cried I. 

The knock was repeated. It was a very soft tapping, as though 
made by a timid knuckle. 

“ Who is there ?” I shouted, gathering myself together with a 
resolution to leap upon the first dark throat that showed ; for I be- 
lieved this soft knocking — this soundless approach — a Malay ruse, 
and my veins tingled with the madness that enters the blood of a 
18 


274 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


man in the supreme moment whose expiry means life or death to 
him. 

“ It is me, master ! Open, master ! It is allee right !” 

“ That’s Nakier !” exclaimed Abraham. 

“Who is it?” I cried. 

“ Me, sah---Nakier. It is allee right, I say. Do not fear. Our 
work is done. We wish to speakee with you, and be friend.” 

“ How many of you are there outside ?” I called. 

“ No man but Nakier,” he answered. 

“How are we to know that?” bawled Abraham. “The most of 
you have naked feet. A whole army of ye might sneak aft, and no 
one guess it.” 

“ I swear Nakier is alone. Lady, you shall trust Nakier. Our 
work is done ; it is allee right, I say. See, you tink I am not alone ; 
you are afraid of my knife ; go a leetle way back — I trow my knife 
to you.” 

We recoiled to the bulkhead, and Abraham roared, “ Heave !” 
The knife fell upon the deck close to my feet. I pounced upon it 
as a cat upon a mouse, but dropped it with a cry. “ Oh, God, it is 
bloody !” 

“ Give it me !” exclaimed Abraham, in a hoarse shout ; “ it’ll be 
bloodier yet, now I’ve got it, if that there Nakier’s a-playing false.” 

Grasping it in his right hand, he slipped back the bolt, and opened 
the door. The sensations of a lifetime of wild experiences might 
have been concentrated in that one instant. I had heard and read 
so much about the treachery of the Malay that when Abraham flung 
open the little cabin door I was prepared for a rush of dusky shapes, 
and to find myself grappling — but not for life, since death I knew 
to be certain, armed as every creature of them was with the deadly 
blade of the sailor’s sheath knife. Instead — erect in the corridor, 
immediately abreast of our cabin, holding a bull’s-eye lamp in his 
hand, stood Nakier, who on seeing us put the light on the deck, and 
saluted us by bringing both hands to his brow. Abraham put his 
head out. 

“ There ain’t nobody here but Nakier !” he cried. 

“ What have you done?” I exclaimed, looking at the man, who in 
the combined light showed plainly, and whose handsome features 
had the modest look, the prepossessing air, I had found when my 
gaze first rested on him in this ship. 

“ The captain is kill — Pallunappachelly, he kill him. The mate 
kill — with this han’.” He held up his arm. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


275 


“ Where’s moy mate?” thundered Abraham. 

“No man touch him. Jacob, he allee right. Two only.” He 
held up two fingers. “ The captain and Misser Jones. They treat 
us like dog, and we bite like dog !” he added, showing his teeth, but 
with nothing whatever of fierceness or wildness in his grin. 

“ What do you want ?” I repeated. 

“ We wantchee you come speak with us. We allee swear on de 
Koran not to hurt you but to serve you, and you serve we.” 

I stood staring, not knowing how to act. 

“ He is to be trusted,” said Helga. 

“ But the others ?” I said. 

“ They can do nothing without us.” 

“ Without one of us. But the others !” 

“We may trust them,” she repeated, with an accent of conviction. 

Nakier’s eyes, gleaming in the lantern-light, were bent upon us as 
we whispered. He perceived my irresolution, and, once again put- 
ting down the bull’s-eye lamp on the deck, he clasped and extended 
his hands in a posture of impassioned entreaty. 

“ We allee swear we no hurt you !” he cried, in a voice of soft 
entreaty that was absolutely sweet with the melody of its tones. 
“ Dat beautiful young lady — oh, I would kill here,” he cried, gestic- 
ulating as though he would stab his heart, “ before dat good, kind, 
clever lady be harm ! Oh, you may trust us ! W T e hab done our 
work. Mr. Wise, he be captain ; you be gentleman — passengaire ; 
you live up-stair and be very much comfortable. De beautiful young 
lady, she conduct dis ship to Afric. Oh no, no, no, you are allee 
safe ! My men shall trow down dere knives upon de table when you 
come, and we swear on de Koran to be your friend, and you be friend 
to we.” 

“ Let’s go along with him, Mr. Tregarthen,” said Abraham. “ Na- 
kier, I shall stick to this here knife. Where’s moy mate, Jacob ? If 
’ere a man of ye’s hurted him — ” 

“ It is no time to threaten,” I whispered, angrily, shoving past 
him. “ Come, Helga ! Nakier, pick up that bull’s-eye and lead the 
way, and, Abraham, follow with that lantern, will you ?” 

In silence we gained the hatch. It lay open. Nakier sprang 
through it, and, one after the other, we ascended. The wind had fal- 
len scantier since I was on deck last, and though the loftier canvas 
was asleep, silent as carved marble, and spreading in spectral wan- 
ness under the bright stars, there was no weight in the wind to hold 
steady the heavy folds of the fore and main courses, which swung in 


276 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


and out with the dull sound of distant artillery as the bark leaned 
from side to side. The cuddy lamp was brightly burning, and the 
first glance I sent through the open door showed me the whole of 
the crew, as I for the instant supposed — though I afterwards found 
that one of them was at the wheel — standing at the table, ranged on 
either hand of it, all as motionless as a company of soldiers drawn 
up on parade. Every dark face was turned our way, and never was 
shipboard picture more startling and impressive than this one of 
stirless figures, dusky, fiery eyes, knitted brows, most of the counte- 
nances hideous, but all various in their ugliness. Their caps and 
queer headgear lay in a heap upon the table. Nakier entered and 
paused, with a look to us to follow. Helga was fearlessly pressing 
forward. I caught her by the hand and cried to Nakier, 

“Those men are all armed.” 

He rounded upon them, and uttered some swift feverish sentence 
in his native tongue. In a moment every man whipped out his 
knife from the sheath in which it lay buried at the hip, and placed it 
upon the table. Nakier again spoke, pronouncing the words with a 
passionate gesture, on which Punmeamootty gathered the knives 
into one of the caps and handed them to Nakier, who brought the 
cap to Helga and placed it at her feet. On his doing this Abraham 
threw the blood-stained knife he held into the cap. 

It was at that moment we were startled by a cry of “Below, 
there !” 

“ Whoy, it’s Jacob !” roared Abraham ; and stepping backward, and 
looking straight up, he shouted, “ Jacob, ahoy ! Where are ye, 
mate ?” 

“ Up in the main-top pretty nigh dead,” came down the leather- 
lunged response from the silence up above. 

“Thank Gawd, you’re alive!” cried Abraham. “It’s all roight 
now — it’s all roight now.” 

“ Who’s agoing to make me believe it?” cried Jacob. 

I stared up, and fancied I could just perceive the black knob of 
his head projected over the rim of the top. 

“You can come down, Jacob,” I cried. “All danger, I hope, is 
over.” 

“Danger over?” he bawled. “Whoy, they’ve killed the mate 
and chucked him overboard, and if I hadn’t taken to my heels and 
jumped aloft they’d have killed me.” 

“No, no — not true; not true, sah !” shrieked Nakier. “Come 
down, Jacob 1 It is allee right !” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


277 


“ Where’s the cap’n ?” cried Jacob. 

“ Him overboard !” answered Nakier. “ It is allee right, I say !” 

A shudder ran through me as I glanced at the cabin which the 
captain had occupied. I cannot express how the horror of this sud- 
den, shocking, bloody tragedy was heightened by Nakier’s cool and 
easy acceptance of the deed, as though the two men whom he and 
his had slain were less to his sympathies than had they been a couple 
of fowls whose necks had been wrung. 

“ Pray come down, Jacob!” said Helga, sending her voice clear as 
a bell into the silent, towering heights. “ You, as well as Abraham, 
are to be known as an Englishman.” 

This little scornful stroke, which was extremely happy in that it 
was unintelligible to Nakier and the others, had the desired effect. 

“ Why, if it is all right, then I suppose it be all right,” I heard 
Jacob say ; and a few moments after his figure, with longshore clum- 
siness, came slowly down the rigging. 

As he sprang from the bulwark rail onto the deck he whipped 
off his cap and dashed it down onto the planks, and with the utmost 
agitation of voice and manner, danced around his cap as he vocifer- 
ated while he flourished his fist at Abraham : 

“Now, what did Oi say? All along I’ve been a-telling ye that 
that there pork job was agoing to get our throats cut. Whoy didn’t 
ye stop it? Whoy didn’t ye tell the cap’n what you seed and 
knowed ? Froight ! Whoy, I moight ha’ died in that there top 
and rolled overboards, and what yarn was ye going to give my 
missis as to my hending, if so be as ever ye got ashore at Deal 
agin ?” 

He continued to shout after this fashion, meanwhile tumbling and 
reeling about his cap as though it were a mark for him upon the 
theatre of this deck on which to act his part. But though it ap- 
peared a very ecstasy of rage in him, the outbreak seemed wholly 
due to revulsion of feeling. Nakier stood motionlessly eyeing him ; 
the others also remained at table, all preserving their sentinel post- 
ures. At last the fellow made an end, put his cap on, and was si- 
lent, breathing hard. 

“ Will you come in, sail ? Will you enter, lady ? Misser Wise, it 
is allee right. Come along, Jacob, my mate I” 

Thus saying, Nakier re-entered the cuddy, and the four of us fol- 
lowed him. There was a dark stain on the bare plank close against 
the coaming or ledge of the door of the captain’s cabin. It was the 
short, wild, startled sideways spring which Abraham gave that caused 


278 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


me to look at it. The very soul within mq seemed to shrink at the 
sight. Nakier exclaimed, 

“ It is easy to scrape out,” motioning as though he scraped with 
his little delicately -shaped hand. He then addressed one of the fel- 
lows at the table, who nodded, sweeping the air with his arm as he 
did so. 

It now occurred to me with the marvellous swiftness of thought 
that the cap containing the men’s knives still lay upon the deck 
where Nakier had lodged it at Helga’s feet, and the instant motion 
of my mind was to return to the quarter-deck, pick the cap up, and 
heave it over the rail. But I reflected that not only might an act 
of this sort enrage the crew by losing them their knives — it would 
also imply profound distrust on our part. I also considered that, if 
they designed to kill us, they would be able to manage that busi- 
ness very well without their knives — for there was the carpenter’s 
tool-chest forward which would supply them with plenty of deadly 
weapons, not to mention the cabin knives, which Punmeamootty had 
charge of, and of which several were at all times to be found in the 
galley. All this passed through my mind in the space that a man 
might count five in, so amazing is the velocity of imagination ; and 
my resolution was formed in this matter even while I continued to 
measure the few steps which separated the table from the cuddy 
door. 

Nakier went to the head of the table, and, putting his hand upon 
the captain’s chair, exclaimed, bowing with inimitable grace to Hel- 
ga as he spoke, 

“ Will de sweet mees sit here ?” 

She passed along the little file of five men and took the chair. I 
do not know whether she had seen that mark on the deck I have 
spoken of. She was of a death-like whiteness, but her eyes shone 
spiritedly as she ran them over the colored faces of the queer figures 
erect on either hand of the table, and never at any time since the hour 
when the dawn showed me her pretty face aboard the Anine , ap- 
parelled as she then was as a boy, had I observed more composure 
and resolution in her countenance. 

I stood close beside her, and Abraham and his mate were on her 
right. Nakier went on gliding feet to the fore-end of the table and 
said something to the men. What language he expressed himself in 
I did not then, and still do not, know. The effect of his speech was 
to cause the whole of them to extend their arms towards us with the 
forefingers of both hands together. The posture, for the moment, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


279 


was absolutely as though to Nakier’s command they had simulta- 
neously levelled firearms at us ! Jacob fell back a step with a growl 
of alarm. 

“ What is all this, Nakier ?” I called out. 

“ It is to say we are all your brodders, sah. It is my country sign 
of friendship.” 

Their hands fell to their sides, but immediately afterwards Nakier 
spoke again to them, whereupon every man levelled his forefingers, 
as before, at Helga. Again Nakier spoke, and Punmeamootty left 
the cuddy. 

“ I wish he’d talk English,” exclaimed Abraham, wiping his fore- 
head. “ Who’s to know what’s agoing to happen?” 

“ It is allee right, Misser Wise,” said Nakier, with a soft smile, 
half of reproach, half of encouragement. “Punmeamootty hab gone 
to fetch de Koran for we to swear to be true and not harm you.” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

A CONFERENCE. 

There was now a pause. How am I to convey the dramatic 
character of this interval of silence ? The hush of the night worked 
like a spirit in the vessel, and the silence seemed to be deepened 
rather than disturbed by the dull, pinion-like beat of the main-sail 
swinging into the mast, by the occasional creak breaking forth from 
some slightly-strained bulkhead, and by the half-muffled gurgling of 
some little lift of dark water laving the bark’s side. I could witness 
no temper in the men. Wherever there lay a scowl, it was no more 
than a part of the creature’s make. Their faces were by this time 
familiar to me, and I could not mistake. Custom had even dimin- 
ished something of the fierceness, and I may say the hideousness, 
of the lemon-colored man, whose corrugated brow and savage eyes 
had been among the earliest details of this ship to attract my at- 
tention on boarding her. Yet with the memory in me of what had 
just now been enacted — with thoughts in me of two corpses scarcely 
yet cold sinking, still sinking, at but a little distance from the vessel 
— these men opposed a horribly formidable array of countenances to 
the gaze. Their various dyes of complexion were deepened by the 
lantern light; the grotesque character of their attire seemed to in- 


'280 


MY DANISH SWEETHEAKT: 


tensify their tragic appearance. Their figures were as motionless as 
though they were acting a part as statues in a stage representation. 
At intervals one or another would look to right or left, but in the 
main their eyes were directed our way, and were chiefly fixed upon 
Helga. 

Jacob stared as though in a dream ; Abraham, with his under- 
jaw hanging loose, appeared to be fascinated by Nakier. I longed 
to plunge into this silence, so to speak, to expend in speech and 
questions the emotions which were keeping my heart fiercely beat- 
ing ; but I was held dumb by the notion that this stillness was a 
part of the solemnities which were to be employed for the protection 
of our lives. 

Punmeamootty re-entered the cuddy holding a book. Nakier 
took it from him, and coming round to us said : 

“ Look, lady ! look, sah ! You see dis is de Koran ” — I observed 
that he sometimes said de and sometimes the — “ it is our religion. 
We swear upon it. Look to make sure !” 

I received the volume, and examined it. It was a manuscript, 
bound in leather, with a flap, and very elegantly ornamented on the 
sides and back with some sort of devices in gold and color. The 
writing was in red, and every page was margined with a finely-ruled 
red line. What tongue it was written in I could not, of course, tell. 
I have since supposed it was in Arabic ; but for us it might as well 
have been the Talmud as the Koran. I returned the book to 
Nakier. 

“ It is allee right, you see, sah,” he exclaimed, showing his won- 
derfully white teeth in a smile of gentle, respectful congratulation 
that put a deeper glow into his eyes and gave a new beauty to his 
handsome features. 

“ It may be the Koran,” said I. “ I cannot tell. I will take your 
word.” 

He turned to the men, and, with a passionate gesticulation, ad- 
dressed them; on which they shouted out all as one man: “Yaas! 
yaas ! Al-Koran ! Al-Koran !” — nodding and pointing and writhing 
and working with excess of Asiatic contortion. 

“We are quite content,” said I. 

Nakier withdrew to his end of the table, carrying the book with 
him. He stood erect, blending the grace of a reposing dancer with 
an air of reserved eagerness and enthusiasm. 

“ Lady and you, sah !” he exclaimed, while every dusky eye along 
the table was fixed intently upon him, “ you sabbe why we kill de 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


281 


captain and Misser Jones ? Them two bad men — them two wicked, 
shocking men. They would make we poor Mussulmans sin, and 
would send we to hell. And why ? Dey not care at heart our soul 
for to save. We came here for work : we gib dem dis for dere 
money ” — he elevated his clinched hands, and then gesticulated as 
though he pulled and hauled — “ not dis, which is Allah’s,” striking 
his breast vehemently ; by which, I presume, he signified his spirit 
or conscience. 

A rumbling murmur ran round the table. I should not have sup- 
posed the fellows understood the man ; but acquiescence was strong 
in every tawny face, and a universal nod followed when he struck 
his bosom. 

“ We not all Malay,” he continued, “ but we are all men, lady. 
We hab feeling — we hab hunger; we drink and cry and laugh like 
you all who are white and do not believe in de Prophet. We have 
killed dose two shocking, wicked men, and we are not sorry. No ; 
it is justice !” he added, with a sudden piercing rise in his melodious 
voice, and a flash of the eye that was emphasized somewhat alarm- 
ingly by an unconscious clutch of his hand at the empty sheath 
strapped to his hip. But his manner instantly softened, and his 
voice sweetened again, though his behavior seemed, while it lasted, 
to exercise an almost electrical influence over his people. They flut- 
tered and swayed to it like ears of wheat brushed by a wind, dart- 
ing looks at one another and at us. But this ceased on Nakier re- 
suming his former air. 

“ Dis ship,” said he, “ is boun’ to Table Bay. Some of us belong 
to Cape Town. Allee want to get to Afric, and dem as not belong 
to Cape Town ship for dere own country. But dis ship must not 
steer for Cape Town. When we arrive, it is asked, ‘ Where is de 
captain? Where is Misser Jones?’ and we must not tell,” said he, 
smiling. 

“ But where do you wish to go, then ?” said I, almost oppressed by 
the sudden simultaneous turning of the men’s dark, fiery eyes upon me. 

“ Near to Cape Town,” said he. 

“ But what do you call near to Cape Town ?” I asked. 

“ Oh, dere will be a river — we find him. We anchor and go 
ashore and walkee, walkee !” he exclaimed. 

Helga gave a little start. 

“What you and your mates wants is that we should put ye 
ashore somewhere ?” said Abraham. 

“ Yaas, dat’s so !” called the fellow named Pallunappachelly. 


282 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ No, no !” cried Nakier, “ not somewhere, Misser Vise. Near 
Cape Town, I say. Not too far for we to walkee.” 

“ But to set ye ashore, anyhow ?” exclaimed Abraham. 

The man nodded. 

“ I suppose you know, Nakier,” said I, with a sense of dismay 
pressing like a weight upon my spirits, “ that this young lady and 
I wish to return home? The captain refused to part with us — he 
insisted on carrying us with him — we have a home to return to. 
Surely you do not intend that we should make the passage to the 
Cape in this bark ?” 

“ Who will navigate de ship ?” said Nakier. 

“ Why, Mr. Wise will,” I exclaimed, turning upon the boatman. 

“ Blowed, then, if I dew !” cried Abraham, recoiling. “ What ! 
along with these — arter what’s — ’soides, I don’t know nothen about 
longitude.” 

“ For mercy’s sake, man, don’t talk like that !” cried I. “ Miss 
Nielsen and I must be transshipped.” 

“ So must Oi !” said Abraham. 

“And Oi!” hoarsely shouted Jacob. 

“ What ees it you say ?” exclaimed Nakier, smiling. 

“ Why, that we all of us wish to get aboard another vessel,” said 
I, “and leave this bark in your hands to do whatever you like 
with.” 

There was a sharp muttering of “ No, no !” with some fierce shak- 
ing of heads on either side the table. Nakier made a commanding 
gesture and uttered a few words in his own tongue. “We must 
not speakee any ship, lady, and you, sah, and you, Misser Vise, and 
Jacob, my mate. Cannot you tell why ?” 

“ If you’re going to keep us here for fear of our peaching,” cried 
Abraham, “ there’s me for wan as is ready to take moy oath that 
I’ll say nothen about what’s happened, purwiding you safely set us 
aboard another wessel.” 

Nakier strained his ear, with a puzzled face. The language of 
Deal was happily unintelligible to him, for which I was exceedingly 
grateful, since nothing could be more imperilling than such talk as 
this. Helga, who all this while remained silent, seated in her chair, 
without lifting her eyes to my face or turning her head, said softly, 
in little more than a whisper, so that only I, who stood at her shoul- 
der, could catch her accents, “ You can sefe by their faces, Hugh, that 
they are resolved. All this has been preconcerted. Their plans are 
formed, and they mean to have their way. We must seem to con- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


283 


sent. Let us agree, that they may take the oath, otherwise our lives 
are not worth more than the captain’s or the mate’s.” 

Nakier’s glowing eyes were upon her, but, though the movements 
of her lips might have been visible, it would seem to them as though 
she whispered to herself. The conviction that she was absolutely 
right in her advice came to me with her words. I needed but to 
glance at the double line of determined faces to gather that argu- 
ment, that even hesitation would merely result in speedily enraging 
the fellows; that they were not to be influenced by the most rea- 
sonable of our wishes ; that our lives had been spared in order that 
we should convey them to a place of safety ; and this, too, I saw 
with the help of the illumination supplied by Helga’s few words — 
that, fully believing the girl qualified to navigate the vessel, they 
might, if we provoked them, destroy the three of us and retain her, 
counting upon their threats and her situation to achieve their ends. 

I said in a hurried aside to the boatmen : “ Not a word, now, 
from either of you! This must be left to me! If you interfere, 
your blood will be on your own heads !” Then, addressing Nakier : 
“ Your demands are these : the bark is to be navigated to some part 
of the South African coast lying near to Table Bay ?” 

“Yaas, sah!” he answered, holding up one finger as though 
counting. 

“The spot you wish to arrive at will have to be pointed out on 
the chart?” 

Up went a second finger, followed by another “ Yaas, sah !” 

“ We are not to communicate with passing ships?” 

“ Right, sah !” he added, nodding and smiling, and raising a third 
finger. 

“ And then ?” said I. 

“ Den,” said he, “ you swear to do dis, and we swear by de Koran 
to be true, and to serve you, and be your friend.” 

“ And if we refuse ?” said I. 

“ Do not say it !” he cried, sweeping his hands forward as though 
to repel the idea. 

“ There must be other conditions !” said I, talking with an air of 
resolution which, I fear, was but poorly simulated. “ First, as to th>e 
accommodation ?” 

“ I do not understand !” said Nakier. 

“ I mean where are we to live?” I cried. 

“ Oh, here ! oh, here !” he shouted, motioning round the cuddy ; 
“ dis is your room. No man of us come here.” 


284 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ And here I stop, tew,” said Abraham. “ No more of your fore- 
castle for me, mates !” 

“ Nor for me !” rumbled Jacob. 

“ Do not say so !” exclaimed Helga, turning hastily to address 
them. “ Be advised. Do not interfere. Let Mr. Tregarthen have 
his way.” 

“ And I suppose,” I continued, running my eyes over the rows of 
faces till they settled on Nakier, “that we shall be waited upon as 
usual, and that we shall be as well cared for as when Captain Bunt- 
ing was alive ?” 

“ Yaas, sah ! yaas, sah !” said Nakier, demonstratively ; and Pun- 
meamootty shouted : “ Me wait allee same upon you and de sweet 
lady. Me sabbee what you like. Me get dem room ready,” point- 
ing to the mate’s and the captain’s cabins. 

I shook my head with a shudder, then said softly to Helga, whose 
gaze was bent on the table : “ Can you suggest anything further for 
me to say to them ?” 

“ Nothing. Get them to take their oath, Hugh.” 

“ Nakier !” I exclaimed, “ we consent to your proposals. Among 
us we will navigate this ship for you. But first you and your mates 
will swear by that Koran in which you believe — I suppose it is the 
Koran — ” 

“ Oh, yaas, yaas !” he cried ; and there was a general chorus of 
“ yaases.” 

“ You must swear by that sacred book of yours not to harm us; 
to be our friends ; to serve us and do our bidding as though we were 
the officers of this ship. Explain this to your men, and let them 
take the oath in theirs and your country’s fashion, and we shall be 
satisfied.” 

On this he addressed them. I hear now his melodious voice and 
witness his animated, handsome face as he poured forth his rich, 
unintelligible syllables. It was difficult to look at the fellow and not 
believe that he was some prince of his own nation. There was noth- 
ing in his scarecrow clothes to impair the dignity of his mien and 
the grace of his motions. I could conceive of him as a species of 
man-serpent capable of fascinating and paralyzing with his marvel- 
lous eyes, holding his victim motionless till he should choose to 
strike. His influence over the others was manifestly supreme, and 
I had no doubt whatever that the tragedy which had been enacted 
was his and wholly his by the claim of creation and command. 
While he talked I would here and there mark a dingy face with a 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


285 


look of expostulation in it. The lamp swinging fairly over the ta- 
ble yielded light enough to reveal expressions. When he had ceased 
there was a little hubbub of voices, a running growl, so to speak, of 
discontent. One cried out to him, and then another, and then a 
third, but in notes of expostulation rather than temper. 

ILelga, without turning her head, said to me, “ I expect they wish 
us to swear, too. Your bare assurance does not satisfy them.” 

The guess seemed a shrewd one, and highly probable, but the 
men’s talk was sheer Hebrew to the four of us. Nakier listened, 
darting looks from side to side, then suddenly lifted both his hands 
in the most dramatic posture of denunciation that could be imagined, 
and hissed some word to them, whereupon every man fell as silent 
as though he had been shot. He picked up the volume and extended 
it to the fellow next him. 

“Takee, takee,” he cried, speaking that we might understand. 
“ Lady, and you, sah, Misser Vise, and Jacob, my mate, dis is de Mus- 
sulman oath we men now take. I speak not well your language, but 
dis is my speech in English of what you shall hear.” Then, com- 
posing his countenance and turning up his eyes till nothing gleamed 
but the whites of them in his dark visage, he exclaimed, in a pro- 
foundly devotional tone and in accents as mejodious as singing : 

“ In de name of Allah de most merciful, and de good Lord of all 
things, if break dis oath do I, den, O Allah, may I go to hell I” 

He paused, then turned to the man who held the volume, who 
forthwith held the book at arm’s-length above his head and pro- 
nounced, in his native tongue, what we might suppose the oath that 
Nakier had essayed to make English of. This done, the book was 
handed to the next man, and so it went round, all in dead silence, 
broken only by the strange, wildly solemn accents of the oath-taker, 
and I noticed that the glittering eyes of Nakier rested upon every 
man as he swore, as though he constrained him to take the vow by 
his gaze. 

Abraham and his mate looked on with open mouths, breathing 
deeply. The book came to Nakier. He was about to lift it, paused, 
and spoke to the^fierce-looking fellow that was called Ong-Kew-Ho, 
who immediately glided out of the cabin — none of these men seem- 
ed to walk: the motion of their legs resembled that of skaters. I 
was wondering what was to happen next, when the fellow who had 
been stationed at the wheel arrived. Nakier addressed him. Imme- 
diately he extended his arms and levelled his forefingers at us as the 
others had ; then elevated the book and recited the oath. 


286 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“All this looks very honest,” I whispered to Helga. 

Then Nakier took the oath, handed the volume to a man, and said 
something. Instantly every man’s arms were pointed at ns, with the 
index fingers touching, and a minute later all the men, saving Nakier, 
had quitted the cabin. 

“ You see, lady, it is allee right,” said he, smiling. 

“ Yes, we are satisfied,” she exclaimed, rising from her chair ; but 
her eye caught the stain on the deck; an expression of horror 
worked in her face like a spasm, and she brought her hand to her 
breast with a half-stifled exclamation. 

“ When day come,” said Nakier, addressing Helga, “ we look at 
de chart and find out de place for you to steer we to.” 

His bearing was still full of Eastern grace and courtesy. No ex- 
pression entered his face to deform its beauty ; yet somehow I 
seemed sensible of a subtle spirit or quality of command in the fel- 
low, as though he was now disguising his sense of power and pos- 
session with difficulty. It was clear that he looked to Helga mainly, 
if not wholly, for what was to be done for them. 

“You shall point out the spot you have in your mind,” said she. 

“You sabbee navigation, sweet lady ?” 

“ Among us,” she answered, with a motion of her hand that com- 
prehended the two boatmen and myself, “ we shall be able to do all 
you require.” 

He made a sort of salaam to her, and said, looking at Abraham, 
“ Who keep de watch ?” 

“ Whose watch on deck is it !” I asked. 

“ The starboard’s — moine,” answered Abraham, with an uneasy 
shuffling of his feet. 

“ Allee right, Mr. Vise; allee right ! It is veree fine night. I go 
now to sleep,” said Nakier, and he went in his sliding, spirit-like fashion 
to the cuddy door, and vanished in the blackness on the quarter-deck. 

The four of us stood grouped at the head of that little table, star- 
ing at one another. Now that the colored crew were gone, a sense 
of the unreality of what had happened possessed me. It was like 
starting from a nightmare, with the reason in one slowly dominating 
the horror raised by the hideous phantasmagoria of sleep. 

“ We must not seem to be standing here as though we were plan- 
ning and plotting,” exclaimed Helga. “Dark figures out in that 
shadow there are watching us.” 

“ That’s right enough, miss,” said Abraham ; “ but what’s to be 
done?” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


287 


“ Here stands a man,” cried Jacob, hotly, striking his breast, “ as 
dorn’t mean for to be carried to the Cape in a bloomin’ wessel full 
o’ bloody savages ; and that’s speaking straight !” 

“ Hush ! cried I. “Soften those leather lungs of yours, will you?” 

“ Ain’t there no fire-arms knocking about ?” said Abraham. 

“ I hope not,” said Helga ; “ we shall be able to manage without 
fire-arms !” 

I looked at her white face but resolved mouth and steady, spirited 
blue gaze. 

“ What is in your mind, Helga?” 

“An idea not yet formed,” she answered. “Give me time to 
think. I believe that not only are our lives to be saved, but the ves- 
sel, too !” 

“ Ha !” cried Abraham, with a thirsty look. “ It needs a sailor’s 
lass to get such a fancy as that into her head ! I’m a Cockney if 
I don’t seem to see a sal wage job here !” 

But Jacob was staring at us gloomily. 

“ What I says is this,” he exclaimed, addressing us with, his fists 
clinched : “ Here be three Englishmen and a gal with the heart of 
two men in her” — “softly !” I interposed — “ with the heart of two 
men in her,” he continued, with a shake of his fist ; “ and what’s for- 
ward ? He-leven whisps of colored yarn ! He-leven heffigies, with 
backbones separately to be broke like this !” He crooked his knee, 
and made as if he were breaking a stick across it. “ Are we,” he 
cried, with the blood mounting to his face and an expression of 
wrath sparkling in his eyes — “are we fower — three men and a 
young lady — to quietly sit down and wait to be murdered, or are we 
to handle ’em as if they was a pack of apes, to be swept below and 
smothered under hatches as a breeze o’ wind ’ud blow a coil of smoke 
along ?” 

“ Lower your voice, man !” I whispered. “What do you want? — 
to court the death that you bolted aloft to escape ?” 

“ What’s to prevent us,” he continued, muffling his tone, though 
the fierceness of his temper hissed in every breath he expelled — 
“ what’s to prevent us a-doing this ? More’n than the watch are be- 
low ; three or fower may be on deck. Ain’t the scuttle forrards to 
be clapped down over the forecastle, where they lie safe as if they 
was at the bottom of a well a hundred foot deep? Ain’t that to 
be done ? And if the three or fower that’s knocking about on deck 
aren’t to be handled by us three men — good-noight !” 

He rounded his back upon us in sheer contempt of passion. 


288 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“ We may do better than that,” said Helga. 

“You’re for supposing that they ain’t going to keep a bright 
lookout, mate,” said, Abraham. “ See here ! What’s good to be 
done, these here hands you’ll find eqal to,” smiting first his left, then 
his right knuckles ; “ but s’elp me Moses I’m not here to be killed. 
Them chaps are born knife-stickers. Touch one, and you’re groan- 
ing at your length on deck with a mortal wound in your witals. 
And if what we do ain’t complete — if so be as they’re wan too many 
for us — and it’s eleven to three, remember that , mate — what’s to 
happen? Ask yourself the question ! For the lady’s sake, I’m for 
all caution.” 

“ We must not remain debating here,” said I. “ They believe us 
sincere. There are eyes watching us, as Miss Nielsen says. This 
holding a council is not going to reassure them. If you object to 
keeping a lookout, Abraham, I’ll take charge.” 

“ I will keep you company, Hugh,” said Helga. 

“ No, no !” cried Abraham. “ It’s moy watch, and Oi’ll keep it.” 

He went clumsily, and with a bewildered manner, to the compan- 
ion-steps. 

“ I’ll remain along wi’ ye, Abey,” said Jacob. “ Arter what I saw 
as I stood at the wheel — the poor chap’s cry — the way they chiicked 
him overboard — ” He buried his eyes in his coat-sleeve. “The 
cussed murderers !” he exclaimed, lifting his face, and looking sav- 
agely around. 

“Come!” cried Abraham, “if ye mean to come! What’s your 
temper agoing to do for us ?” 

“ I’ll relieve you at four o’clock,” said I, looking at the timepiece, 
the hands of which stood at a quarter before two. 

The men went on deck, and, turning down the lamp — for the 
revelation of the light served as a violent irritant to the nerves on 
top of the fancy of the secret, fiery-eyed observation of us without — 
I seated myself beside Helga on a locker to whisper and to think. 

The girl and I had passed through some evil, dark, and dangerous 
hours since we first came together in that furious Saturday night’s 
gale ; but never was the worst of them all comparable to this middle 
watch through which we sat, for hard upon two hours of it, in gloom, 
in the ocean silence that lay upon the bark, imagining the movement 
of dark shapes in the blackness that came like a wall to the cabin 
door, and the gleam of swiftly-recoiling eyes peering at us through 
the cabin skylight. Regularly through the stillness sounded the 
combined tread of Abraham and his mate over our heads, with 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


289 


sometimes a halt that almost startled the ear, while we could clearly 
catch the rumbling growling of their conversation as they passed the 
skylight on their way to and fro. 

Yet strangely enough — I am speaking for myself — the horror of 
the double assassination did not lie upon my spirit with the dead- 
ening weight I should have imagined as the effect of so shocking, 
sudden, and bloody a tragedy. That which might have been acute 
horror was subdued into little more than a dull and sickening conster- 
nation by perception of our own peril. Yet I would look at those 
berths lying on either side the cuddy-front as though from either 
one or the other of them the figure of the captain or his mate must 
stalk ! The stain upon the cabin-deck lay black as ink against the 
captain’s door. Oh, to think that that was all of him his bark now 
contained ! 

We sat whispering about the unhappy creature and his wretched 
subordinate ; then our talk went to other matters. I told Helga we 
need not question that the intention of the crew was to cast the ves- 
sel away upon some part of the South African coast, near enough to 
Cape Town to enable them to trudge the distance, but too remote 
from civilization for the movements of the bark to be witnessed. 
That was their resolution, I said ; I would swear to it as though it 
had been revealed to me. That they would never suffer us three 
men to land alive we might be as sure as that they had slaughtered 
Bunting and his mate. 

“ Their oath counts for nothing, you think ?” said she. 

I answered, nothing : they would value their lives above their oath. 
Not likely they would suffer us to testify to their crime. Under the 
serpent-fair exterior of Nakier lay as passionless a capacity of mur- 
der as ever formed the mechanical instinct of any deadly beast or 
reptile. 

“His eye,” I said, “will never be off us.” Even as we whispered, 
his gaze or that of another subtle as himself might be upon us. He 
was the one to fear, and this carried me into asking, “ What is to be 
done?” 

Yet before the hands of the clock were upon the hour of four we 
knew what was to be done. It was wholly Helga’s scheme. Her 
little brain had planned it all, but it was not until she spoke and de- 
livered her plot bit by bit that I understood the reason of her silence 
while I had been feverishly whispering my fears, talking of the cap- 
tain, of Nakier, of the treachery of the Malay and Cingalese miscre- 
ants, and asking, as one might think aloud, “ What is to be done ?” 

19 


290 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


We went on deck at four ; it was the darkest hour of the night, 
but very quiet. I bade Abraham and the other man go forward and 
turn in as had heretofore been their custom. 

“ Not a word !” I cried, in swift response to the first of Jacob’s 
remonstrance. “ I cannot speak here. There are thirsty ears at the 
wheel. We have planned that long before this time to-morrow the 
bark shall be our own, with nothing more for you to do than to cal- 
culate the value of the salvage. I’ll find an early chance to explain 
— but not here! not now! Forward with you both, for our lives 
depend upon the fellows believing that we have confidence in them.” 

This I spoke as rapidly as intelligibility would permit, and, with 
Helga, drew away from them, moving towards the wheel. They 
hung as though staring and deliberating a few moments, then, with- 
out a word, went forward. 

I spoke pleasantly to the fellow at the helm — what man it was 
I could not see — said that the vessel’s course was the right naviga- 
tion for the South African coast, and so forth. He answered me 
throatily, with a note of satisfaction in his thick speech, and then 
Helga and I fell to quietly pacing the deck. 

We took great care to speak low; so nimble and ghostly were 
the movements of this colored crew that it was impossible to tell 
where a man might be lying listening and hidden. Twice I beheld 
the flitting of a shadow in the obscurity round about the main-mast, 
and all the while I walked I was again and again casting a look be- 
hind me. 

It seemed an eternity ere the cold gray of the dawn hovered in 
the east. The first sight the bleak and desolate light revealed was 
a patch of dark crimson abreast of the companion, close against the 
rail, marking the spot where the unhappy mate had been stabbed. 
The bark stole glimmering out to the daylight, lifting her ashen 
canvas with a gloom about the deck where the forecastle ended as 
though the blackness of the night had been something tangible, and 
the lingering shadows between the rails fragments and tatters of it. 
I swept the sea-line. The ocean was a gray desert floating in thin 
lines of swell which made it resemble a vast carpet stirred by a 
draught of wind. But the small breeze of the previous evening 
was still with us, and the broad bows of the vessel broke the water 
into wrinkles fine-drawn as piano-wire as she swam forwards, slowly 
rolling. 

Three of the crew sat, squatting like Lascars, against the long- 
boat. I called, and they instantly sprang to their feet and came aft. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


291 


“ Get scrapers,” said I, “ and work that stain out of the deck fast 
as you can move your arms.” 

They sprang forward, returned with the necessary tools, and, in a 
minute, were on their knees scraping violently. With a dreadful 
feeling of sickness of heart I rejoined Helga at the other end of the 
deck. 

The sun rose ; the morning was to be a bright one ; the heavens 
went, in a clear tropic blue, into the south and west, and in the 
north-east the clouds, like a scattering of frosted silver, hung high 
and motionless — mere pearly feathers of vapor, to be presently ab- 
sorbed. Helga went below, to her cabin under the deck. When I 
asked her if she did not feel timid at the idea of penetrating those 
gloomy depths alone, she smiled, and, merely saying, “Ah, Hugh, 
you have called me a brave girl, but you do not believe me to be 
so,” she left me. 

It was shortly after seven o’clock that I spied Nakier standing in 
the galley door talking to some one within. I called to him ; he 
immediately knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and, slipping the 
inch of sooty clay into his breast, approached me. His salute was 
full of respect, and he surveyed me with eyes so gentle and so cor- 
dial that one looked to see the engaging tenderness of his heart 
overflowing his face in smiles. So much for appearances! The 
most poisonous-fanged rogue of them all in that bark full of colored 
wretches made miscreants and murderers of by Captain Joppa Bunt- 
ing’s theories of conversion might have passed to every eye as one 
of the very few sweet-souled men in this great world of wrong- 
headed humanity ! 

“ I want you to send Abraham to me, Nakier,” said I, in the civil- 
est manner I could command. “ It is his watch below, but I desire 
his presence and help while I overhaul the captain’s cabin for 
charts, for instruments of navigation, and so forth.” 

He sought to veil, by drooping his lids, the keen glance he shot 
at me. 

“ Yaas, I send Misser Vise to you, sah,” said he ; “ but first I would 
like to speakee about dat place we sail to. We have agree, and we 
ask you,” he continued, with a smile that put an expression of coax- 
ing into his handsome face, “ to agree allee same with us to sail for 
Mossel Bay. It is a very good bay, and it have a nice little town.” 

“ Yes,” said I ; “ and when we get there, what do you mean to do 
with the ship ?” 

“ Oh, we alllee go ashore,” he answered. 


292 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


He then asked me if I knew where Mossel Bay was situated. I 
answered that I had never heard of the place, but that if it was down 
on the charts we should undoubtedly be able to carry the bark to it. 
I then again requested him to send Abraham aft that he and I and 
the young lady might examine the contents of the captain’s cabin, 
ascertain the situation of the ship when observations were last taken, 
and confer as to the course to be steered. I thought he hesitated 
for an instant, but, with true Malay swiftness of resolution that scarce- 
ly gave me time to note the hang of the mind in him, he exclaimed : 
“ I will send Misser Vise, sah,” and went forward. 

In a few minutes Abraham arrived. He was speedily followed by 
Jacob, who hung about in the waist, looking wistfully aft. He, how- 
ever, was to be talked to afterwards, for the policy of the three of us 
was to keep as separate as possible, coming together only under some 
such excuse as I had now invented. The men who formed the watch 
on deck were “ loafing about,” to use the expressive vulgarism, one 
lounging against the bulwark-rail with another talking to him ; here 
a fellow squatting like a Hindoo blowing a cloud, there a couple pa- 
trolling ten feet of deck, their arms folded upon their breasts. There 
was no gesticulation, no excitement, nothing of the swift fierce whis- 
pered conversation significant with the flashing of the askant glance 
that had been noticeable down to the dusk of the previous evening. 
Nakier paced the weather side of the forecastle. I never once caught 
him looking our way, yet I could feel that the fellow had us in his 
eye as fully as though his stare was a level one. 

“Abraham,” said I, “ I have sent for you under the pretence of help- 
ing me to overhaul the dead skipper’s stock of nautical appliances. 
My real motive is to create an opportunity to acquaint you with the 
plot Miss Nielsen and I settled between us while we were in the cud- 
dy. Don’t look knowing, man ! Put on as honest and stupid a 
Deal beach air as you can manufacture.” 

I called to Nakier. 

“The bark will want watching. Step aft and keep a lookout 
while we are below, will you ?” and followed by Abraham I entered 
the cuddy. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


293 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

HELGA’S PLOT. 

.Before summoning Helga I resolved to take a peep at the 
berths, lest there should be some sight in one or the other of them 
too shocking for her to behold. I was made to think of this by the 
great blood-stain on the deck close against the cabin door. Its true 
complexion showed in the daylight. Abraham again backed away 
on seeing it; but time was precious. This was an opportunity to 
be made the most of, and, pushing open the door, I peered in. It 
was as I might have conjectured. The captain had been assassi- 
nated by twenty strokes of the fellows’ knives as he lay in his bunk 
asleep. Not one, not half a dozen stabs could have made such a 
horror of the bedclothes and the square of carpet on the deck as we 
gazed at. It was not an interior fit for Helga to enter. 

I looked into the mate’s berth, and found it as the man had left 
it — the blanket lying as it had been tossed when he arose. There 
was nothing frightful here; but our business lay in the captain’s 
cabin, and, full of loathing, I re-entered the horrible room and shut 
the door. 

“A piteous sight — a piteous sight, sir !” exclaimed Abraham, look- 
ing about him in a stupefied way, and biting upon his underlip to 
moisten it. 

“ Now, attend,” said I. “ Collect your wits, for our stratagem 
signifies life or death to us.” 

It took me but a few minutes to communicate Helga’s plan. He 
grasped the thing with sailorly promptitude, nodding eagerly, with 
the blood returning to his cheeks to my hurried whispering, and 
when I had made an end and drew back to mark his judgment in 
his face, he struck his thigh a mighty blow, but said, in a voice cold 
with resolution, despite his countenance being all awork with agita- 
tion : “ It will do, sir. It can’t fail. It is only the getting ’em to- 
gether ; but it is to be done with a little patience.” 

“ Now,” said I, “ let us see what is here. Will the poor fellow 
have had a revolver ?” 


294 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


But we searched in vain for such a weapon. With hasty, desper- 
ate hands, never knowing but that at the next moment Nakier might 
enter or some probing yellow face stare in upon us through the lit- 
tle window that overlooked the quarter-deck, we ransacked the lock- 
ers, explored a large black sea-chest, examined the shelves — to no 
purpose. 

“ He was too good a Christian man,” said Abraham, hoarsely, 
“ to own a pistol. Had he been a Nova Scotiaman, there’d be veap- 
ons enough here to rig out a regiment of the line vith.” 

“ It cannot be helped,” said I, keenly disappointed nevertheless, 
for I had counted upon finding a revolver, scarcely doubting that a 
man in charge of such a ship’s company as these colored fellows 
formed would go to sea well armed. 

With all haste possible we transferred to the mate’s cabin a bag 
of charts, a couple of sextants, a chronometer, and other matters of 
a like sort, and then, with sickened hearts, closed the door upon that 
tragic interior of the captain’s berth. I looked through the contents 
of the bag, and found a large blue-backed chart of South Africa, 
with marginal illustrations of the principal ports, harbors, and head- 
lands. 

“ This will do,” said I ; and rolling it up I put it under my arm, 
and, accompanied by Abraham, stepped through the cuddy door. 

My eye once more, as I passed, fell upon the dreadful stain in- 
grained in the plank of the deck, and, observing Punmeamootty 
speaking with another man a little forward of the main-mast, I was 
about to call and order him to scrape out the odious, shocking blotch. 
But at the same instant it crossed my mind to let it be ; it was a 
detail to fit into our stratagem, and I whispered the fancy to Abra- 
ham as we quitted the cuddy. I believed that all this while Helga 
was below in her cabin, and I was leaning over the little hatch that 
led to our quarters to call to her, when she pronounced my name 
from the deck overhead, and on looking up I saw her standing at 
the brass rail with Nakier. 

“ Shall Oi go forward an’ get my breakfast or keep along with 
you, Mr. Tregarthen ?” said Abraham. 

“ Keep with me for a little time,” I answered, and he followed me 
on to the poop. 

Nakier’s fine eyes glowed, and his face was lighted up with an ex- 
pression of admiration and pleasure. It was manifest, at the first 
glance, that Helga had not spared her simple, pretty arts in convers- 
ing with him. Her first words to me were, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


295 


“ Nakier has been talking to me about his native country, Hugh. 
Oh, what a shining land of flowers and birds and a thousand other 
delights must it be !” She clasped her hands as though in rapture, 
and added, “ I shall hope some of these days to visit that beautiful 
country.” 

“This is all very clever, and happily devised, and well done,” 
thought I, stealing a peep at Nakier, who was steadfastly regarding, 
with undissembled admiration, the girl’s sweet, fresh face, that was 
faintly flushed by her enactment ; “ but if we three men should be 
made away with ” — I choked off the hurry of ugly fancies that 
swarmed on top of the thought of that dark princely-mannered vil- 
lain falling in love with her, and exclaimed, 

“ Yes, the country of the Malays is a paradise, I believe. Here, 
Nakier, is a chart of South Africa.” 

We went to the skylight to spread it. 

“ Now,” said I, “ where is this Mossel Bay that you were speaking 
about ?” 

I pored upon the chart in a posture of eager interest. He imme- 
diately pointed to the place with a forefinger as delicately shaped as 
a woman’s. 

“Ha !” said I. “Yes; that is to the eastward of Agulhas. See,” 
I continued, pointing to one of those marginal illustrations I have 
referred to, “ here is a picture of the bay. It is a long walk to Cape 
Town !” I continued, looking around with a smile at Nakier. 

“ Oh no ; plenty coach, plenty horse, plenty ox,” he responded, 
showing his teeth and speaking without the least hesitation — a qual- 
ity of assurance that made me hopeful, for it was everything indeed 
that he should believe us credulous enough to suppose that Mossel 
Bay was the destination he had in his mind. 

“ Here is the picture, Helga !” said I. “ D’ye see it, Abraham ? A 
fine open roadstead, not to be easily missed by you and Miss Niel- 
sen. There are a couple of excellent sextants and a good chronom- 
eter below, and all necessary instruments for a safe navigation.” 

“ Oy, a first-class bay, and no mistake,” exclaimed Abraham. 

Bending his squint upon the chart in a musing way, he scored 
along the line of coast with his square-cut thumb, as though calcu- 
lating courses and distances. Miserable as I felt, I could have burst 
into a laugh at the face he put on. 

“ Oi’ve long had a notion,” said he, still squinting at the chart, “of 
wisiting these ’ere foreign parts. Oi’ve heered tell of Cape Town as 
a proper city, plenty o’ grapes a-knocking about and sherry vines 


296 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


and the likes of them drinks to be had for the asting, everything A 1 
and up to the knocker. But see here, Nakier,” said he, in a won- 
derfully familiar and friendly shipmate-like sort of way. “ Oi’m a 
pore man, and so is my mate Jacob. Tell ye what Oi’m a-thinking 
of : ain’t there no chance of our taking up a few pound for this here 
run ?” 

His apparent earnestness must have deceived a subtler eye than 
ever Nakier could have brought to bear on him. I uttered a word 
or two, as though I would remonstrate. 

“You and me, Misser Vise, will speak on that by-um-bye. We 
allee want money, and we get it,” responded Nakier, nodding sig- 
nificantly. 

I partly turned away, as though there was nothing in this conver- 
sation to interest me. 

“Ye don’t know what hovelling is, Nakier, Oi suppose?” said 
Abraham. “This here wessel is what we should call a blooming 
good job down our way — ” 

I interrupted him, fearful lest he should overdo his part: “You 
might go forward and get some breakfast now, Abraham. You can 
relieve me here when you have finished the meal. Is there anything 
more you wish to know that this chart can tell us about, Nakier ?” 

“No, sah. Now you sabbee where Mossel Bay is, it is allee right.” 

Abraham was descending the poop -ladder. Under pretence of 
giving him the chart to replace in the mate’s berth, I whispered, 
“ Mind you tell Jacob everything,” and then walked aft with Helga, 
leaving Nakier to go forward. 

Throughout that morning the weather continued wonderfully 
brilliant and quiet. The heavens were a sweep of blue from line to 
line, and the sun as hot as we might have thought to find it ten de- 
grees farther south. But shortly after ten o’clock the weak wind, 
that had been barely giving The Light of the World steerage way, 
entirely failed, the atmosphere grew stagnant with the dry, parched 
hollowness that one sometimes notices before a storm, as though 
Nature sucked in her cheeks before expelling her breath through 
her feverish lips. I put my head into the skylight to look at the 
barometer, not knowing but that there might be dirty weather at the 
heels of this passing spell of sultry silence ; but the mercury stood 
high, and the lens-like sharpness of the line of the horizon along with 
the high fine-weather blue was as ample a confirmation of its promise 
as one could hope to find. By eleven o’clock the calm was broken 
by a delicate rippling of wind out of the north-east — the first fanning 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


297 , 

of the north-east trade-wind I took it to be. The yards were trimmed 1 
to the change by Abraham, who followed on with some orders about 
the foretop-mast studding-sail. I was on deck at the time, and, hear- 
ing this, rose hastily and thrust past him, saying between my teeth, 
so vexed was I by his want of foresight, 

“ Keep all fast with your studding-sail gear, you fool ! Are we 
three Englishmen taking a line-of-battle ship’s company ? Pray think 
before you bawl out !” 

Ue saw his blunder, and, after a leisurely well-acted view of the 
sea, as though the weather had raised a debate in his mind, he called 
out to the three or four fellows who were clambering aloft to rig the 
boom out on the foreyard, 

“ Never mind about that there stun-sail ! Ye can lay down, moy 
lads !” and he bawled to me (who had returned aft), by way, no doubt, 
of excusing himself to Nakier, who was on the forecastle and who 
appeared to be keeping a keen lookout upon the ship on his own 
account, “There’s no use, Oi think, Mr. Tregarthen, aworriting about 
stun-sails ontil this here breeze hardens. It ’ll only be keeping the 
men agoing for no good.” 

“ Unless we are speedy,” I whispered to Helga, as we stood within 
ear-shot of the helmsman, “that man Abraham will ruin us. Think 
of the fellow piling canvas at such a time ! What a curse is conse- 
quentially when out of season ! Here is a poor, miserable Deal 
boatman with the privilege of ordering a few black men about, and 
he doesn’t know how to make enough of his rights.” 

From time to time I would gaze mechanically round the sea in 
search of a ship, but with no notion of finding encouragement in the 
gleam of a sail or in the shadowing of a steamer’s smoke. My hope lay 
in a very different direction. But custom is strangely strong on ship- 
board, and I continued to look, though I was without the wish to see. 

Shortly before noon I fetched the two sextants, one of which I gave 
to Abraham and the other to Helga. The boatman seemed hardly 
to know what to do with the instrument ; it was a new, very hand- 
some sextant, sparkling with brass and details of telescope, glass, and 
the like, and bore as little resemblance to^the aged, time-eaten quad- 
rant that had gone down with the Early Morn as to the cross-staff 
of the ancient mariner. I marked him putting it to his eye, and 
then fumbling with it, and, noticing several fellows forward, Nakier 
among them, attentively watching us, I called to him softly, 

“ Keep it at your eye, man ! Let them believe that you thor- 
oughly understand it !” 


298 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


“Roight ye are,” he answered, putting the instrument to his face; 
“ but who the blazes is agoing to bring the sun into the middle o’ 
such a muddle o’ hornamentation as this here ?” 

The attention of the men, however, was in reality fixed upon 
Helga. She stood at the rail within full view of them, and there 
was, indeed, novelty enough in the sight to account for their staring, 
apart from the hope they had of her as the one that was to navigate 
their ship to the coast on which, as I took it, they meant to wreck 
her. Her well-fitting dress of dark serge showed no signs of wear as 
yet. No posture that she might have artfully adopted could so 
happily express the charms of her figure as this, when she turned 
her face sunwards, with the shining sextant raised to her eye. The 
delicate pale gold of her short hair was the right sort of tint to fasci- 
nate the dusky gaze that was fastened upon her. In her conversa- 
tions with me she had made little or nothing of her knowledge of 
navigation, but it was easy to see in an instant’s glance that she was 
a practised hand in the art of coaxing the sun’s limb to the sip of 
the sea-line. 

I spied Nakier forward watching her with an air of breathless in- 
terest. He and the rest of them might have doubted her capacity, 
knowing of it only from such off-hand talk as Punmeamootty had 
been able to collect and repeat from the cabin table. But now she 
was justifying their expectations, and by this time the whole of the 
crew — ten of them, with Jacob in the waist and a Malay at the wheel 
— were staring as one man; the cook from the door of his galley, 
Nakier on the forecastle swinging off from a rope, the rest of them in 
groups here and there. » 

“ It is eight bells !” cried Helga, in her clear voice, accentuated, 
as it always was, with a faint harshness of Scandinavian articulation. 

“ Height bells 1” roared Abraham, though it might have been 
midnight to him, so far as the indications of his sextant went. 

“ Eight bell !” piped the melodious voice of Nakier, like a belated 
echo of Helga’ s cry ; and the chimes floated along the quiet decks. 

I told Abraham to go below to the mate’s cabin, and bring ma- 
terials of ink, paper, log-book, and so forth, to enable Helga to 
work out the sights; also the chronometer and the Nautical Alma- 
nack. This was a part of our plot; otherwise, as you may suppose, 
the chronometer was not a thing to be carried here and there, least 
of all by such hands as Abraham’s. The men were now passing in 
and out of the galley,, conveying their dinner of smoking beef and 
ship’s “ duff ” into the forecastle. They talked eagerly, aud with a 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


299 


gratulatory tone. That Helga had been able to find out what o’clock 
it was by the sextant was the fullest warranty of her sufficience as a 
navigator the poor wretches’ ignorant souls could have demanded. 

Nakier remained on the forecastle watching us. I summoned him 
with a motion of my forefinger, and he came rapidly gliding to the 
poop. 

“ I wish you to remain here,” said I, “ while Miss Nielsen calcu- 
lates the bark’s position, that you may be able to tell the rest of 
the men they are in friendly hands, and that we look for the same 
friendly behavior from you all.” 

He answered with a motion of his hand that was as expressive as 
a Frenchman’s gesture. 

“ It would have been moi’e convenient for the lady,” I continued, 
“to have made her calculations, in the captain’s cabin, but ” — I looked 
him full in the face; he did not seem to understand — “that berth 
is not fit for her to enter.” 

“ Ha !” he exclaimed, “ dat shall be put right. I have forgot.” 

“ By-and-by. No hurry now. Tell Punmeamootty to bring us 
our dinner here. Miss Nielsen does not care to use the cuddy. She 
is a young lady — impressionable — you understand me, Nakier? 
When all is made straight the feeling will pass with her. But for 
the present — ” 

I broke off as Abraham arrived, bringing with him the articles I 
had despatched him to procure. 

“ Whose trick at the wheel is it ?” I asked the boatman, careless- 
ly. “ It is noon, and that man yonder has been at the helm since 
ten.” 

“ It’ll be Jacob’s, sir. Oi allow he’s waiting to finish his dinner.” 

“ No, no,” said I, “ that’s not true ship’s discipline. Fair must be 
fair aboard us,” and, with some demonstration of warmth in my man- 
ner, I went to the poop-rail and bawled for Jacob to come aft. The 
man promptly made his appearance, and the moment he had gripped 
the spokes of the wheel the ginger-colored fellow who had been steer- 
ing fled along the decks for his dinner fleet as a hare with hunger. 
Abraham, with pencil and paper in hand, leaned upon the compan- 
ion-cover while he pretended to be lost in calculating. Nakier and 
I $tood looking on at Helga, who was seated on one side the sky- 
light, the lid of which being closed and lying flat, provided her with a 
table on which stood the chronometer, the volumes, the charts, and 
the other appliances she needed. She knew exactly what to do, and 
worked out her problems with a busy face, and the blue of her eyes 


300 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


sweetened into violet by the shadow of the lashes. Deeply worried, 
miserably anxious as I was on the eve of a project the failure of 
which was bound to signify an inhuman butchery of the three of us 
by the dark-skinned creatures we designed to betray, I could still 
find heart for admiration of the wonderful heroism of this girl. She 
was actively to share in our enterprise, and, if failure followed, her 
doom might be even more fearful than ours ; yet, had her face been 
of marble carved into an incomparable counterfeit of a girl’s counte- 
nance intent on a bit of arithmetic and nothing more, its passion- 
lessness, its marvellous freedom from all expression of agitation, could 
not have been completer. 

When she had completed her reckoning, she opened the chart 
which bore Captain Bunting’s “ prickings,” as it is termed, and with 
rules and pencil continued the line to the situation of the ship at 
noon. 

“ That is where we are at this moment,” she exclaimed, pointing 
to the chart. 

Nakier, with looks of astonishment and delight, peered. 

“What d’ye make it, miss?” called Abraham. 

She gave him the latitude and longitude — what it was has wholly 
escaped me. 

“ Roight !” he shouted, tearing up his bit of paper. 

“ Take these things below, Abraham,” said I, indicating the nauti- 
cal instruments and charts, “ and then get your dinner. When you 
have done I shall want you to come aft and take charge of the bark 
for half an hour. Miss Nielsen wishes to go to her cabin, and I am 
no sailor to be left alone with this craft.” 

“ Oy, oy, sir !” he answered ; and picking up the things he trundled 
off the poop. 

“ Send Punmeamootty here with something for ns to eat, if you 
please, Nakier,” said I. 

He made a soft salaaming bow, and quitted us with shining eyes 
and a highly-pleased face. Presently the steward approached us 
with some cold salt beef, biscuit, and a bottle of wine. He spread 
a cloth upon the skylight, and then brought a couple of chairs from 
the cabin. While he was doing this I slipped into the mate’s berth 
and took a tract-chart of the world from the bag and returned with 
it. I opened and pretended to examine it with anxious attention, 
speaking in an aside to Ilelga in a grumbling, doubting voice, and 
with a shake of my head, while Punmeamootty stood by waiting to 
learn if we had further orders. I told him we should require noth- 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


301 


mg more, and then rolling up the chart feigned to attack the re- 
past before us. But as to eating ! — not for ten times the value of 
this Light of the World and her cargo could I have swallowed a 
morsel. Ilelga munched a biscuit and drank a little wine, eying 
me collectedly, with often a smile when my glance went to her. 

“ What a heart beats in you !” I cried, gently, for it was impossi- 
ble to know but that some- wriggling, nimble-heeled colored skin 
had slipped into the cabin, and was hanging motionless close under 
us, with his ear at the skylight. “But it is not too late even yet 
to reconsider; I can do without you, Helga.” 

“ Yes, but not so well as with me,” she answered. 

“ But if we fail — ” 

“ There must be no thought of failing.” 

“ If we fail,” I continued, “ they may spare you, as not apparent- 
ly in the plot, and they will spare you the more readily, and use 
you well, too, since they must be helpless without you to navigate 
them.” 

“ Hush !” she whispered. “ The stratagem will be the surer for 
my presence. And what is the danger ? There can be none if we 
manage as we have arranged.” 

“ When d’ye reckon on starting on this here job, Mr. Tregarthen ?” 
called Jacob from the wheel. 

I shook my fist as a hint to him to hold his tongue. I waited 
a few minutes, during which I pretended to be busy with my knife 
and fork. The yellow-faced cook stood in the galley door smoking ; 
there were two fellows beyond him conversing close against the fore- 
castle hatch. The rest of the seamen were below at their dinner. I 
now opened the chart ; Helga came round to my side, and the pair 
of us fell to pointing and motioning with our hands over the chart 
as though we were warmly discussing a difficulty. I raised my voice 
and shook my head, exclaiming, “ No, no ! Any sailor will tell you 
that the prevailing gales off Agulhas are from the east’ard;” and 
continued in this fashion, delivering meaningless sentences, always 
very noisily, and with a great deal of gesticulation, while Helga act- 
ed a like part. The three fellows forward watched us steadfastly. 

Just then Abraham rose out of the forecastle hatch and approach- 
ed the poop in a strolling, rolling gait, carelessly filling his pipe as 
he came, and sending the true ’longshore leisurely look at the sea 
from side to side. A couple of fellows followed him out of the 
hatch, entered the galley for a light, as I supposed, and emerged 
smoking. Helga and I still feigned to be wrangling. Then Abra- 


302 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


ham joined us, and, after listening a minute or two, raised his voice 
with a wrangling note in it also. 

“ Come, Helga,” I whispered, “ this fooling has lasted long enough. 
Now for it, and may God shield us ! Abraham, stand by, my lad ! 
Keep your eye forward !” 

I had courted a few occasions of peril in my time, and knew what 
it was to have death close alongside of me for hour after hour ; but 
then my blood was up, there was human life to be saved, and, out- 
side that consideration, there was small opportunity for thought. It 
was otherwise now, and I own that my heart felt as cold as stone as 
I advanced to the forecastle with Helga. I prayed that my cheeks 
would not betray my inward perturbation. I did not greatly fear for 
the girl. Though we should fail, I believed her life would be saved, 
horrible as the conditions of preservation might prove to her. It 
was otherwise with me. Let but a suspicion of my intention enter 
the minds of the men, and I knew that in the space of a pulse or 
two I must be a corpse pierced by every knife in that vessel’s fore- 
castle. 

As I approached the hatch that led to the quarters of the crew, 
Nakier came out of it. I suppose that the fellows who had been 
watching us called down to him, and that he came up to gather 
what the discussion on the poop might be about. He looked aston- 
ished by our presence in that forepart of the ship, and there was a 
mingling of puzzlement and of cunning in his eyes as he ran them 
over us. 

“ Nakier,” said I, “ I cannot satisfy myself that Mossel Bay is a 
safe and easy destination for this vessel.” 

“ It was settle, sah,” he exclaimed, quickly. 

“There are more accessible ports on the South African coast. 
What are the views of your crew ?” 

“ Dey are all of my ’pinion, sah.” 

“ The matter has not been discussed in their presence,” I exclaim- 
ed. “ Why do you wish to carry us round Agulhas ? Besides, do 
not you know that there are ships of war at Simon’s Bay, and that 
there is every chance of our falling in with one of her Majesty’s 
cruisers off that line of coast you wish us to sail round ?” 

By this time the few men on deck had gathered about us, and 
were listening eagerly, with their necks craned and their eyes like 
blots of ink upon ovals of yellow satin, but fire-touched, steadfast 
upon me. 

“ I do not agree with Mr. Tregarthen, Nakier,” said Helga. “ I 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


303 


believe there is nothing to fear from our sailing round the Cape. 
He speaks of the heavy seas of the Southern Ocean and of strong 
easterly winds. It is not so,” she added, smiling. 

“ No, no,” he cried, with a passionate motion of the head, “ no 
easter wind dis time ob year. All fine-wedder sailing, beautiful 
smooth sea, allee same as dis.” 

“Now, see here,” said I, with a note of imperativeness in my 
speech. “ I have a right to express an opinion on this matter, and 
my contention is that it is ridiculous to sail round to Mossel Bay 
when you may get ashore for your walk to Cape Town on this side 
of the stormy headland of Agulhas.” 

The fellow’s eyes sparkled with irritation and misgiving as he 
looked at me. 

“Abraham and his mate are both of my way of thinking,” I went 
on. “ The lady, on the other hand, has no objection to Mossel Bay. 
Here we are, then, undecided as yet. Do you follow me?” He 
nodded his head sideways, as much as to say, “ Go on.” “ The four 
of us, however, will agree to this. The chart gives you a view of 
South Africa. Let all hands assemble, saving those two men aft 
there, who are willing to abide by your decision. Let me show them 
this chart and explain my ideas to them. If, after I have been 
heard, you and your men still insist upon our carrying this vessel to 
Mossel Bay, it shall be done.” 

“ Where can we lay the chart ?” said Helga. 

“ Is there a table in your forecastle, Nakier ?” I asked, sending a 
look at the little hatch which yawned close by. 

“Yaas, sah,” he answered, glancing from Helga to the cuddy as 
if he could not understand us. 

I met his eyes with a shake of my head as though I could read 
his thoughts, and, approaching him by a stride, whispered : “ Not 
in the cuddy. You know why, Nakier. She will not enter it until 
it has been cleansed, and I must have her by my side if we are to 
fairly argue this difficulty.” 

“I can easily descend,” said Helga, stepping to the forecastle 
hatch to look down it. “I should like to see the men’s quarters, 
Nakier. I am as much a sailor as any of you, and have slept in a 
hammock.” 

The man’s gaze glowed with the admiration I had noticed in it 
while she was working out the navigation problems. Had he been 
the subtlest-witted of his race, what could he have witnessed in this 
desire of the girl and me to enter the forecastle to excite his suspi- 


304 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


cion ? The other poor dusky fools standing by with tawny orange 
or primrose faces wrinkled their repellent masks with sailor- like 
grins of expectation ; for whatever be the color of Jack’s skin at sea, 
the least excitement, the least divergement from the miserable mo- 
notony of his life, is a delight to him. 

“Shall I go first?” said I. 

Ilelga uttered a clear laugh. “ I should be ashamed,” she an- 
swered, “not to be able to enter a ship’s forecastle without help,” 
and so saying, she put her little foot upon the first of the pieces of 
wood nailed against the bulkhead and serving as steps, and descend- 
ed. I followed, bidding Nakier, as I entered the hatch, to order ev- 
ery mother’s son of his crew to attend, since it was a question for 
all hands, and their decision was to be final. 

It was a time of emotions and sensations, and memory recalls but 
little more. I remember that, one after another, in response to Na- 
kier’s call, the men who were on deck dropped below, till the fore- 
castle seemed full of dusky, grotesquely attired shapes. The day- 
light streamed down through the oblong yawn of hatch. The flame 
of a slush-lamp charged the interior with an atmosphere of greasy 
smoke. Some bunks went on either hand, and a few hammocks 
dangled from the upper deck. There was a square table fixed to 
the stout after - bulkhead that divided this compartment from the 
hold. The men seemed to be without other wearing -apparel than 
that they stood up in. I saw no sea-chests, no bags; merely here 
and there a shoe, a cap, a sou’-wester, an oil-skin smock dangling at 
a nail. The murmur of the water, broken by the stealthily sliding 
stem, penetrated the stillness with a subdued sound of hissing like 
the swift respiration of the men, who gathered about Helga and me 
as we stood at the table with the chart open before us. Hard by 
the table was a stove, the chimney of which, in a zigzag, pierced the 
deck, showing its head well out of the way close against the hollow 
under the top-gallant forecastle where the windlass was. But for 
this chimney, the stratagem we were about to attempt must have 
been rendered impossible by humanity. 

Pressing my forefinger upon the chart, the curling corners of 
which were held down by Nakier on the one hand and Helga on the 
other, I fell to explaining my views, as I chose to call them, mean- 
while looking round to observe that all hands of the Malays and 
Cingalese were present — for the creatures had a trick of coming and 
going like shadows. I bade them all listen, looking into one face 
after another, and I can see them now, shouldering one another and 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


305 


eagerly bending forward, a strange, gloomy huddle of discolored 
countenances, flashful with eyes, and of various expressions. Some 
of them barely understood English, apart from the plain sea-going 
terms, and these frowned down upon the chart or at me in their ef- 
fort to understand my meaning. Upon every man’s left hip was 
strapped the inevitable sheath-knife of the sailor, accessible in a twist 
of the wrist, and my breath for a little while grew labored, while I 
cursed myself for not having acted upon the first motion of my 
mind after Nakier had laid the capful of naked blades at Helira’s 
feet. 

“See here, now!” I exclaimed, addressing the men generally — 
“ judge of the time and leagues we might be able to save by making 
for St. Helena Bay, or, say, Saldanha Bay, instead of Mossel Bay. 
Here is Simon’s Town, and in this bight, as you all of you know, 
lie several of her Majesty’s ships. Figure a cruiser requiring us to 
bring to, and sending a boat aboard us. What then ?” 

The few of the fellows who understood me breathed hard and 
looked at Nakier. One of them, with a Dutch accent, exclaimed : 

“ Boss, how far be it from Saldanha Bay to Cape Town ?” 

Nakier said something almost fiercely to him in his native tongue. 
The man responded in a dialect that certainly, to my ear, did not 
resemble Nakier’s ; but this might have been owing to the swinish 
thickness of his utterance, and, having spoken, he thrust one of his 
mates aside, to get nearer to the table, and, putting his grimy thumb 
on the part of the chart where Simon’s Bay was marked, he stared 
at Nakier, nodding with a vehemence that seemed a sort of fury in 
him — immediately afterwards rounding upon the others, and ges- 
ticulating with his hand to his neck, clearly signifying a halter. 

“ No, no !” cried Nakier. 

“ How far ? — how far, boss ?” shouted the other, addressing me. 

“ I cannot tell,” said I, “ without a pair of compasses. I forgot 
to bring those measuring instruments with me, Nakier. I will fetch 
them — I’ll be back among you in a few minutes.” 

Helga, with a well-acted start and look of alarm, said: “ You must 
not leave me alone here, Hugh ! Let me fetch the box.” 

“ Very good,” said I. 

She lightly gained the deck, . but even while she was making for 
the hatch I was covering her retreat by noisily talking and demon- 
stratively pointing, so that every man’s attention was fixed upon me. 

I held the corner of the chart, which Helga had pinned down with 
her fingers, while I spoke ; the chart was stiff and had not been often 
20 


306 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


used, and when one let go it rolled itself up into a funnel. I per- 
ceived that my reference to the British ships of war at Simon’s Bay 
had taken a hold upon the imagination of a few of the fellows, and 
while I seemed to wait for Helga I made the most of this by asking 
the men if they could tell me what vessels were on that station, if 
they knew how often and in what direction they cruised, and then 
I said : 

“ Suppose on our arrival at Mossel Bay we find an English frigate 
or corvette there? Men, have you thought of that? It is not be- 
cause I am innocent of the blood of the captain and the mate who 
were assassinated last night that I wish to be boarded by a lieuten- 
ant and a dozen English sailors from a man-of-war on our arrival, 
wherever it may be, or on the high seas. Can I be sure of proving 
my innocence if I am charged with having had a hand in this crime?” 
I cried, looking defiantly at Nakier and raising my voice. “ Would 
you come forward and say that you and your men were guilty, and 
that I and the lady and the two Englishmen were innocent? You 
know you would not !” I thundered, heavily striking the chart a 
thump with my clinched fist. “ Why, then, do you want to sail 
past this Simon’s Bay? Is* not this side of the coast safer, freer 
from the risks of falling in with a ship of war, and nearer by many 
miles to Cape Town than Mossel Bay ?” 

“ How much near ? how much near, boss ?” cried the man who 
had already asked this question. 

“ Here !”. said I. “ Hold down this corner of the chart, will you, 
while I call to Mr. Wise to bring me the box of instruments? Evi- 
dently Miss Nielsen cannot find the things. Mr. Wise put the box 
away, and will know where it is.” 

I left the table and stood under the hatch a moment to address 
a word to Nakier in that wild, mad spirit of defiance that will often 
in the timidest mock at peril in the most terrible instant of it. 

“ Make your men understand,” I cried, “ that if we fall in with a 
man-of-war, every soul of them stands to be hanged by the neck 
until he is dead !” 

As I said these words I sprang, caught the coaming of the hatch, 
gained the deck with another bound, and the next instant the slide 
of the hatch was swept in a roar through its grooves by the power- 
ful hands of the two Deal boatmen. 

“Cotched!” cried Abraham, while I swung the iron bar to the 
staple and hooked the padlock into it. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


307 


Chapter xxv. 

FIRE! 

“Well, and if this here ain’t been a right down sort of proper 
cajolin’ job tew ! Strike me bald, Mr. Tregarthen, if the hexecution 
of this here trepanning ain’t vurth a gold medal, let alone the plan- 
ning of it !” shouted Jacob. 

I rose from my knees with my hand upon my heart, breathing 
short. The reaction from the intense mental strain of the preceding 
twenty minutes ran a feeling of swooning through my brain, but 
the fresh air and sense of safety speedily rallied me. Helga stood 
at the wheel steering the bark. I flourished my arm to her, and she 
kissed her hand to me. Close against the securely-covered hatch 
stood the two boatmen, and at either man’s feet lay a heavy belay- 
ing-pin, which, as I knew by what had been preconcerted, had been 
gripped by their powerful fists ready for the first black head that 
might have followed me as I emerged. 

“Never should ha’ believed you could have compassed it!” ex- 
claimed Abraham. “Never could ha’ supposed that such artful 
chaps as them darkies was so easy to be took in ! A hay-wan piece 
o’ acting, Mr. Tregarthen ! No theayter show that e’er I’ve heard of 
or sat at ever came up to it !” 

All was silent below. I had thought, on the hatch being thrust 
to, that the imprisoned fellows would have fallen to beating and 
bawling. There was not a sound. Were they accepting their fate 
with the resignation of the Mussulman ? The scantling of the hatch- 
cover that secured them was of unusual thickness. When opened, 
the foremost lid slided back on top of the other, and when closed, 
as it now was, it was held fast to the coaming by a strong iron- 
hinged bar fitting to a staple in which lay a padlock. The after lid 
was kept down by an iron batten, so that, once secured, the hatch- 
cover was in all respects as impenetrable from above or below as the 
deck itself. Nor were we under any apprehension that the immured 
men could find other means of escaping. The bulkhead of the fore- 
castle was a massive wall of wood. There was, indeed, a little hatch 


308 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


right forward, by which the forepeak might be entered; but this 
forepeak was also stoutly bulkheaded, with the cargo in the hold 
coming hard against the division ; and though the men should con- 
trive to break through into the hold, the secured after hatches would 
still as effectually bar the deck to them as though every mother’s 
son lay helplessly manacled in the bottom of the ship. 

“ Now,” said I, “ the poor wretches must not suppose we mean to 
starve them. Murderers though they be, Heaven knows one can’t 
but pity them, seeing what the wrong was that drove them into 
crime. Hush, now, that I may catch their answer !” 

I stepped over to the forecastle chimney, which, as I have already 
told you, pierced the planks close against the opening under the top- 
gallant deck. It stood as high as a man ; my mouth was on a level 
with the orifice, and the zigzag funnel provided as excellent a speak- 
ing-tube as though designed for that and no other purpose. 

“ Below, there !” I cried through it, and thrice did I utter this 
summons before I received a response. 

“ What you wanchee ?” floated up a reply — thin, reed-like, unreal, 
a tone not to be distinguished. 

“I am hailing to let you know that we shall keep you liberally 
supplied with food and fresh-water,” I shouted. “ Plenty of fresh 
air will blow down to you through this chimney. Take notice: 
you are securely imprisoned. There is no possibility of your es- 
caping. At the same time, if you make the least effort to release 
yourselves we will leave you to starve below, and to perish miserably 
with thirst.” 

“ What do you mean to do with us ?” was the faint cry that fol- 
lowed my speech. 

“ That is our business,” I roared back. “ Keep you quiet, and 
you shall be well used !” 

I waited for the voice to speak again, but all remained hushed, 
and I came away very well satisfied to know that Nakier, at all 
events, would understand my language, and translate it to the others. 

This plot had been so carefully prepared that we knew exactly 
what to do. Our first business was to shift the bark’s helm, and 
trim sail for the Canaries — the land that lay nearest to us — where, 
at Santa Cruz, we might count upon getting all the help we re- 
quired. We briefly arranged that Jacob should keep watch at the 
hatch. At the first sound of disturbance below he was to call us. 
There was small need for such sentineling, yet our fears seemed to 
find it necessary, at the outset at all events, for they were eleven to 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


309 


three, and we could not forget that , securely imprisoned as we knew 
them to be. 

I went aft with Abraham. My brave little Helga, on my ap- 
proach, let go the wheel, and extended her hands. My love for her, 
that had been held silent in my heart by the troubles, the worries, 
the anxieties, the perils which had been pressing heavily upon us for 
many days, now leaped in me, a full and abounding emotion, at the 
sight of her sweet, hopeful face, her brave smile, the tender congratu- 
lation in her eyes, her outstretched hands ; and, taking her in my 
arms, held her to me, and kissed her once, and yet again. Abraham, 
grasping a spoke of the wheel, swung off from it, giving us, with 
longshore modesty, his back, as he gazed steadfastly over the stern. 
She struggled for a moment, and was then quiet, trying to hide her 
blushing face against my shoulder. 

“ It must have come to this, Helga,” I whispered, “ sooner or later ; 
and what is soonest is always best, my love, in such matters. You 
are mine by right of the poor old Anine ; you are mine, Helga, by 
right of your father’s commands to me.” 

I kissed her again, released her, and she went to the rail and over- 
hung it for a few minutes, while I waited watching her. 

“ Now, dear heart,” said I, “ let us get the ship round, and you 
shall tell us what course to steer for Santa Cruz.” 

From this moment we were too busy for a long while to think of 
sentiment. The bark was under all plain sail, and we were but three 
men to get the yards braced round. The wind was a very light 
breeze, the sea smooth and delicately crisped, the sky a pure azure, 
unblurred anywhere by so much as a feather- tip of cloud. Helga, 
still wearing a rosy face, but with the very spirit of happiness and 
hope radiant in her eyes — and no better sign of how it was with her 
heart could I have asked of her — fetched the chart, and, having de- 
termined the course, took the wheel from Abraham, and the three 
others of us went to work with the braces. We sprang about in red- 
hot haste, since none of us liked the notion of leaving the hatch un- 
watched for even a few minutes. But two pairs of hands only could 
not have dealt without tedious toil with those yards. 

According to Captain Bunting’s reckoning, we had been in the 
latitude of Madeira on Tuesday, October 31st 5 but, spite of our 
having been hove “to during the fierce weather of November 1st 
and 2d, we had driven heavily to the southward, so that now on 
this afternoon of Friday, November 3d, we computed our distance 
from the Canaries to be some hundred miles. I can but speak as 


310 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


my memory serves me> but these figures) I believe, fairly represent the 
distance. The light wind softly humming in our rigging out of the 
north-east would not suffer the bark to lie her course for the islands 
by a point or two, but this was a matter of little moment. We 
might surely count from one hour to another, now, on heaving some 
sort of sail into sight, and in expectation of this we took the English 
ensign out of the locker and bent it on to the peak halyards with 
the jack down, ready for hoisting when the moment arrived. Not 
that we expected that any merchantman we might fall in with would 
greatly help us. It was hardly to be supposed that a ship-master 
would consent to receive a mutinous, murderous crew of eleven col- 
ored men into his vessel. The utmost we could hope from a ship 
homeward bound like ourselves was the loan of a couple of men to 
assist us in navigating the bark to Fuuchal. 

Indeed, the sense of our necessity in this way grew very strong 
in me after we had come to a pause in our labor of bracing the 
yards up, and were standing near the forecastle hatch pale with heat 
and wet with perspiration, and panting heavily. I say I grew mighty 
sensible of the slenderness of our little crew of three men and a girl 
— who, to be sure, in her boy’s clothes would have been the nimblest 
of us all aloft, but who could do no service in that way in her wom- 
an’s dress — when I sent my gaze up at the quiet breasts of sail soft- 
ly swelling one upon another, and rising spire-like, and thought of 
how it must be with us should heavy weather set in — such a gale as 
we might be able to show no more than a close-reefed top-sail to, 
unless the whole fabric of masts and canvas was to go overboard. 

I said to Abraham: “Don’t you think we could safely trust a 
couple of those poor devils below — Punmeamootty, for example, and 
that tawny fellow, Mow Lauree ? We’re terribly short-handed.” 

“ Aye,” he answered, “ short-handed we are, as you say, sir ; but 
trust e’er a one of ’em, arter the trick they’ve been sarved ! Lord 
love ’ee ! the first thing them two men ’ud do whensoever our backs 
should be tarned for a moment ’ud be to lift that hatch there — and 
then stand by !” 

“’Soides,” exclaimed Jacob, “this ere’s to be a salwage job, and, 
as poor old Tommy ’ud ha’ said, we don’t want to make no more 
shares than the diwisions what’s already represented.” 

I was not to have been influenced by Jacob’s talk about shares, 
but Abraham’s remark was to the point ; it convinced me, and I 
dropped the subject, making up my mind to this — that if the 
wind should freshen, there was nothing for it but to shorten sail 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 311 

as best we could, and leave what we could not deal with to blow 
away. 

When our work of trimming yards was ended, I told Jacob to boil 
a quantity of salt beef for the fellows below, that they might have 
rations to last them several days. We found a breaker stowed away 
in the long-boat, and this we filled with fresh-water from the scuttle- 
butt, ready to hand through the hatch. I was very earnest in this 
work. It was easily imagined that the interior in which the men lay 
imprisoned would be desperately hot, with no more air to get to 
them than such as sulkily sank out of the listless breeze through the 
zigzag chimney, and with the planks of the deck above their heads 
like the top of an oven with the day-long pouring of the sun. And, 
miscreants as they were, villains as I have no doubt they would have 
ultimately proved themselves to us, I could not endure to think of 
them as athirst, and also tormented with fears that we intended to 
leave them to perish of that most horrible form of suffering. 

Yet it would not do to make separate parcels of the provisions we 
intended for them. We must open the hatch at our peril while we 
lowered the food ; and this was to be done once, and once only. 

It was past five by the time that all was ready. Twice had we 
heard a sound of knocking in the hatchway ; but I guessed that it 
signified a demand for water, and dared take no notice of it until 
we were prepared. The three of us — Helga being at the wheel — 
armed ourselves with a heavy iron belaying-pin apiece, and, station- 
ing the boatmen at the hatch, I put my face against the mouth of 
the funnel and hailed the men through it. I was instantly answered : 

“ Yaas, yaas, sah ! Oh, in the name of Allah, water !” 

It was such another thin, reed-like voice as had before sounded, 
yet not the same. This time it might have been Nakier who spoke. 

“ We are going to give you water and food now !” I shouted. 
“We will open the hatch, but only one man must show himself to 
receive the things. If more than one of you shows himself we will 
close the hatch instantly, and you will get no water. Do you un- 
derstand me?” 

“Yaas, yaas,” responded the voice, sounding in my ear as though 
it were half a mile distant. “We swear by Allah only one man he 
show hisself.” 

“ Let that man be Punmeamootty !” I bawled. 

I then returned to the hatch. Jacob, putting the belaying-pin 
into his coat-pocket, stood abaft ready to rush the lid of the hatch 
to at a cry from me, while Abraham, on the left, hung with poised 


312 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


weapon, prepared for the first hint of a scramble up from below. I 
remember the look in his face : it was as though he were already 
fighting for his life. I slipped the padlock, withdrew the bar, and 
pushed the cover back some three or four inches. The glare on the 
deck blinded me when I peered down : the interior seemed as black 
as midnight to my eyes. 

“ Are you there, Punmeamootty ?” I cried. 

I heard a faint “ Yaas,” pronounced in a subdued, terrified tone. 

“Come up till your hands show,” cried I, for I feared that he 
might have his knife drawn and would stab me if I put my arms 
down. 

His hands, with extended fingers, rose through the mere slice of 
opening like those of a drowning man above water, and then I could 
see the glimmer of his eyes as he looked up. 

“ Are the rest of you well away ?” 

“ Allee standing back ! Allee standing back !” he exclaimed, pit- 
eously. 

On this I pulled the hatch open a little wider, Abraham bending 
over it with the belay ing-pin lifted; and, the interstice being now 
wide enough, I fell to work as quickly as possible to hand down the 
provisions. These consisted of three or four bags of ship’s biscuit and 
a number of large pieces of boiled salt-horse. But the water-cask, or 
breaker rather, gave me some trouble. What its capacity was I do 
not know. It was too heavy for me to deal with single-handed. I 
called Jacob, and together we slung it in a couple of bights of rope, 
and, rolling it over the coaming, lowered away. * It effectually block- 
ed the hatch while it hung in it, and Punmeamootty had to back 
away to receive it. 

This done, I threw down a few pannikins, not knowing but that 
they might be without a drinking-vessel in the forecastle, then closed 
the hatch, catching a loud cry from below as I did so ; but I dared 
not pause to ask what it was, and a moment later the cover was se- 
curely bolted, with Jacob sitting upon it, leisurely pulling out his 
pipe, and Abraham and I walking aft. 

Some time later than this, bringing the hour to about six o’clock, 
Helga and I were eating some supper — I give the black tea, the bis- 
cuit, and beef of this meal the name they carry at sea — one or the 
other of us holding the wheel that Abraham might obtain some sleep 
in the cabin, when the man Jacob, who was trudging a little space 
of the deck forward, suddenly called to me. I left the wheel in 
Helga’s hands, and made my way to the boatman. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


313 


“ Oi fear them chaps is a-suffocating below,” said he ; “ they’re 
a-knocking desperate hard against the hatch, and their voices has 
been a-pouring through that there chimney as though their language 
wor smoke. Hark! and ye’ll hear ’em.” 

The sound of beating was distinct. I went to the mouth of the 
funnel, and heard a noise of wailing. 

“What is it?” I cried. “What is wrong with you below?” 

“ Oh, give us air, sah ! give us air !” was the response. “ Some 
men die ; no man he live long downee here.” 

God knows to whom that weak, sick voice belonged. It struck a 
horror into me. 

“ We must give them air, Jacob,” I cried, “ or they’re all dead men. 
What is to be done ?” 

“ There’s nowt for it but to open the hatch,” he answered. 

“Yes,” cried I ; “we can lay bare a little space of the hatchway — 
enough to freely ventilate the forecastle. But how to contrive that 
they shall not slip the cover far enough back to enable them to get 
out ?” 

He thought a moment, then, with the promptitude that is part 
of the education of the seafaring life, he cried, “ I have it !” 

Next moment he was speeding aft. I saw him spring into the 
starboard quarter-boat with an energy that proved his hearten hon- 
est and humane one, and in a trice he was coming forward holding 
a couple of boat stretchers — that is to say, pieces of wood which are 
placed in the bottom of a boat for the oarsman to strain his legs 
against. 

“ These’ll fit, I allow,” cried he, “ and save half an hour of saw- 
ing and cutting and planing.” 

He placed them parallel upon the after lid, and their foremost ex- 
tremities suffered the lid which travelled to be opened to a width 
that gave plenty of scope for air, but through which it would have 
been impossible for the slenderest human figure to squeeze. Be- 
tween us we bound these stretchers so that there was no possibility 
of their shifting, and then I tried the sliding cover, and found it as 
hard-set as though wholly closed and padlocked. 

“ How is it now with you ?” I cried, through this interstice. 

The reply came in the form of a near chorus of murmurs, which 
gave me to know that all the poor wretches had drawn together 
under the hatch to breathe. I desired to be satisfied that there was 
air enough for them, and called again, “ How is it with you now, 
men ?” 


314 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


This time I could distinctly recognize the melodious voice of Na- 
kier : “ It is allee right now. Oh ! how sweet is dis breeving. Why 
you wanchee keep us here ?” 

He was proceeding, but I cut him short; the liberation of the 
wretched creatures was not to be entertained for an instant, and it 
could merely grieve my heart to the quick, without staggering my 
resolution, to listen to the protests and appeals of them as they stood 
directly under the hatch in that small, black, oppressive hole of a 
forecastle. 

After this all remained quiet among them. I was happy to be- 
lieve that they were free from suffering; but, though I knew the 
hatch to be as secure as though it was shut tight, and the hinged bar 
bolted, yet it was impossible not to feel uneasy at the thought of its 
lying even a little way open. Of all the nights that Helga and I had 
as yet passed, this one of Friday, November 3d, was the fullest of 
anxiety, the most horribly trying. The wind held very light ; the 
darkness was richly burdened with stars, there was much fire in the 
sea too, and the moon, that was drawing on to her half, rode in brill- 
iance over the dark world of waters which mirrored her light in a 
wedge of rippling silver that seemed to sink a hundred miles deep. 
We dared not leave the hatch unwatched a minute, and our little 
company of four we divided into watches, thus : one man to sentinel 
the Malays, two resting, the fourth at the wheel. But there was to 
be no rest for me, nor could Helga sleep, and for the greater space 
of the night we kept the deck together. 

Yet there were times when anxiety would yield to a quiet, pure 
emotion of happiness, when I had my little sweetheart’s hand under 
my arm, and when, by the clear light of the moon, I gazed upon her 
face and thought of her as my own, as my first love, to be my wife 
presently, as I might hope — a gift of sweetness and of gentleness 
and of heroism, as it might well seem to me, from old Ocean herself. 
That she loved me fondly I did truly believe and, indeed, know. It 
might be that the memory of her father’s words to me had directed, 
and now consecrated, her affection. She loved me, too, as one who 
had adventured his life to save hers, who had suffered grievously in 
that attempt — as one, moreover, whom bereavement, whom distress, 
privation, all that we had endured, in short, had rendered intimate to 
her heart as a friend, and, as it might be, now that her father was 
gone, and she was a girl destitute of means, her only friend. All 
had happened since October 21st: it was now November 3d. A 
little less than a fortnight had sufficed for the holding of this wild, 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


315 


adventurous, tragical, yet sweet passage of our lives. But how much 
may happen in fourteen days ! Seeds sown in the spirit have time 
to shoot, to bud, and to blossom — aye, and often to wither — in a 
shorter compass of time. Was my dear mother living ? Oh ! I 
might hope that, seeing that, if ever Captain Bunting’s message about 
me had been delivered, she would before this be knowing that I was 
safe, or alive, at least. What would she think of Helga? What of 
me, coming back with a sweetheart, and eager for marriage ? — coming 
back with a young girl of whom I could tell her no more than this : 
that she was brave and good and gentle; an heroic daughter; all 
that was lovely and fair in girlhood meeting in her Danish and Eng- 
lish blood ; with face, with speech, with manners whose simple elo- 
quence of appeal could need no words from me. 

The morning broke. All through the night there had been si- 
lence jn the forecastle ; but daylight showed how the extreme vigi- 
lance of those long hours had worked in my face, as I might tell by 
no other mirror than Helga’s eyes, whose gaze was full of concern 
as we viewed each other by the spreading light of the dawn. There 
was the dim gleam of a ship’s canvas right abreast of us to star- 
board, and that was all to be seen the whole horizon round. 

After we had got breakfast, the three of us went forward and re- 
ceived the empty breaker from the fellows below, contriving on our 
removing the stretchers so to pose ourselves as to be ready to beat 
down the first of them if a rush should be attempted, and instantly 
close the hatch. The breaker came empty to our hands. We filled 
and lowered it as on the previous evening, then left the hatch a little 
open as before ; and now, so far as the provisioning of the fellows 
was concerned, our work for the day was ended, seeing that they 
had beef and biscuit enough to last them for several days. They 
made no complaint as to the heat or want of air ; but after we had 
lowered the little cask, and were fixing the stretchers, several of them 
shouted out to know what we meant to do with them, and I heard 
Nakier vowing that if we released them they would be honest, that 
they had sworn by the Koran, and would go to hell if they deceived 
us; but we went on securing the hatch with deaf ears, and then 
Jacob and I went aft, leaving Abraham to watch. 

The sun ^as hanging about two hours and a half high over the 
western sea-line that afternoon, when the light air that had been little 
more than a crawling wind all day freshened into a pleasant breeze 
with weight enough slightly to incline the broad-beamed bark. This 
pleasant warm blowing was a refreshment to every sense : it poured 


316 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


cool upon our heated faces ; it raised a brook-like murmur, a sound 
as of some shallow fretting stream on either hand the vessel ; and, 
above all, it soothed us with a sense and reality of motion, for the 
bark to it broke the smooth waters bravely, and the wake of her, 
polished and iridescent as oil, went away astern to the scope of two 
or three cables. A few wool-white clouds floated along the slowly 
darkening blue like puffs of steam from the funnel of a newly- 
started locomotive; but they had not the look of the trade cloud, 
Helga said. She had taken sights at noon, had worked out the 
vessel’s reckoning, and had made me see that it would not need very 
many hours of sailing to heave the high land of Teneriffe into sight 
over the bow, if only wind enough would hold to give the old 
bucket that floated under us headway. 

I was holding the wheel at this hour I am speaking of, and Helga 
was abreast of me leaning against the rail, sending her soft blue 
glances round the sea as she talked. Abraham, with a pipe in his 
mouth, his arms folded, and his head depressed, was slowly march- 
ing up and down beside the forecastle hatch. Jacob lay sound 
asleep upon a locker in the cuddy within easy reach of a shout down 
the companion-way or through the skylight. 

On a sudden my attention was taken from what Helga was saying, 
and I found myself staring at the main-mast, which was what is called 
at sea a “ bright ” mast — that is to say, unpainted, so that the slowly- 
crimsoning sun found a reflection in it, and the western splendor lay 
in a line of pinkish radiance upon the surface of the wood. This 
line, along with a portion of the spar, to the height, perhaps, of 
eighteen or twenty feet, seemed to be slowly revolving, as though, in 
fact, it were part of a gigantic corkscrew, quietly turned from the 
depth of the hold. At first I believed it might be the heat of the 
atmosphere. Helga, observing that I stared, looked too, and in- 
stantly cried out : “ Hugh, the vessel is on fire 1” 

“ Why, yes !” I exclaimed ; “ that bluish haze is smoke !” 

I had scarcely pronounced these words when Abraham, with his 
face turned our way, came to a dead halt, peered, and then roared out : 

“Mr. Tregarthen, there’s smoke a- filtering up out of the main 
hatch !>’ 

“ Take this wheel !” said I to Helga; then, in a bound, I gained 
the skylight, into which I roared with all my lungs for Jacob to 
come on deck. As I ran forward I could see the smoke thinly ris- 
ing in bluish wreaths and eddies round about the sides of the main- 
hatch, and from under the mast-coat at the foot of the main-mast. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


317 


“ They’re a-shouting like demons in the fok’sle, sir,” cried Abra- 
ham, throwing his pipe overboard in his excitement. 

“ They have set fire to the ship !” I cried. “ Does smoke rise 
from the fok’sle ?” 

“ Yes ! ye may see it now ! — ye may see it now !” he bawled. 

In the moment or two’s pause that followed I heard the half- 
muffled shouts of the dark-skinned crew, with one or two clearer 
voices, as though a couple of the fellows had got their mouths close 
against the narrow opening in the hatch. I rushed forward from 
abreast of the main-mast, where I had come to a stand. 

“ What is wrong ?” I cried. “ Where is this smoke coming from?” 

A voice answered— it was Nakier’s — but his dark skin blended 
with the gloom out of which he spoke, and I could not see him. 

“ Some man hab taken de fork’sle lamp into de forepeak, and hab 
by haccident set fire to de cargo by putting de lamp troo a hole in 
de bulkhead. For your God’s sake let we out, or we burn !” 

“ Is this a trick ?” cried I to Abraham. 

“ Test it, sir ! — test it by opening the main-hatch !” he shouted. 

Jacob had by this time joined us. In a few moments we had 
removed the battens and torn off the tarpaulin, but at the first rise 
of the after-hatch cover that we laid our hands upon up belched a 
volume of smoke, with so much more following that each man of us 
started back to catch his breath. Now could be plainly heard a 
noise of shrieking forward. 

“ My God ! men, what shall we do ?” I cried, almost paralyzed by 
this sudden confrontment of the direst peril that can befall humanity 
at sea, but rendered in our case inexpressibly more horrible yet, to 
my mind, by the existence of the pent-up wretches whom I felt, 
even in that moment of stupefying consternation, we dared not lib- 
erate while we remained on board. 

“ What’s to be done ?” cried Jacob, whose wits seemed less abroad 
than Abraham’s. “Ask yourself the question? The wessel’s on 
fire, and we must leave her if we ain’t to be burned.” 

“ What ! leave the Malays to perish ?” I exclaimed. 

“ Let’s smother this smoke down first, anyways,” cried Abraham, 
and he and his mate put the hatch on. 

“ Helga,” I shouted, “ drop the wheel ! Come to us here ! The 
ship is on fire !” 

She came running along the poop. 

“ See this !” cried Abraham, extending his arms, which trembled 
with the hurry and agitation of his mind ; “ if them fellows for- 


318 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


ward are not to be burned — and oh! my Gord, listen to them 
a-singing out ! we must provision a quarter-boat and get away, and, 
afore casting off, one of us must pull them stretchers off that the 
men may get out. Who’s to be that last man ? I will !” 

“ No, ye can’t swim, Abey ! That must be moy job,” shouted 
Jacob. 

I can lay hold of a buoy, an’ jump overboard.” 

“ It’ll be moy job, I tell ye !” passionately cried Jacob. 

“ Oh, hark to those poor creatures !” exclaimed Helga. 

“ Quick !” cried I. “ Abraham has told us what to do. Oh ! 
there would be no need for this horrible haste but for those im- 
prisoned men ! Hear them ! Hear them !” 

It was a wild and dreadful chorus of lamentation, mingled with 
such wailings as might rise in the stillness following a scene of bat- 
tle. The noise was scarcely human. It seemed to proceed from 
famished or wounded jackals and hyenas. But to liberate them — 
every man armed as he was with a sheath-knife deadly as a kreese in 
those dingy fists — every man infuriate — it was not to be dreamed of ! 

As swiftly as we could ply our legs and arms, we victualled the 
starboard quarter-boat. Provisions were to our hands ; we threw 
them in plentifully — remains of cooked meat, biscuit, cheese, and 
the like ; we took from each boat the breaker that belonged to her, 
filled them both with water, and stowed them. The sail belonging 
to the boat lay snugged in a yellow water-proof cover along the 
mast; there were oars in her — all other furniture, indeed, that proper- 
ly belonged to her — rowlocks, rudder, yoke : and the boatmen, old 
hands at such work as this, nimbly but carefully saw that the plug 
was in its place. 

All the time that we worked there was rising out of the forecastle 
hatch the dreadful noise of lamentation, of cries, of entreaties. It 
was a sound to goad us into red-hot haste, and we labored as though 
we were eight instead of four. 

“ Now, Mr. Tregarthen,” cried Abraham, “ if we ain’t to be pur- 
sued by them savages on our liberating of ’em, we must cut them 
there falls.” And he pointed to the tackles which suspended the 
other boat at the port davits. 

“ Do so!” said I. 

He sprang on to the rail, and passed his knife through the ends 
of the falls. This effectually put an end to all chance of the fellows 
chasing us in that boat. 

“ There’ll be plenty o’ time for them to get the long-boat out,” 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


319 


shouted Abraham, running across the deck to us. “ They’re seamen, 
and there’s Nakier to tell ’em what to do.” 

“ Rot ’em for firing the ship !” cried Jacob. “I don’t believe she 
is on fire. They’ve made a smoke to scare us out of her !” 

“ Is everything ready ?” I exclaimed. 

“ Hugh !” cried Helga, clasping her hands, “ I have forgotten my 
little parcel — the picture and the Bible !” 

She was about to fetch them. 

“ I can be quicker than you,” I cried ; and rushing to the hatch, 
jumped down it, gained the cabin she had occupied in Captain 
Bunting’s time, and snatched up the little parcel that lay in the 
bunk. There was no smoke down here. I sniffed shrewdly, but 
could catch not the least savor of burning. It is the fore part of 
the ship that is on fire, I thought. As I ran to regain the hatch, it 
somehow entered my mind to recollect that while looking for a lead- 
pencil in the chief mate’s berth, on the previous day, I had found a 
small bag of sovereigns and shillings, the unhappy man’s savings — 
all, perhaps, that he possessed in the world — the noble fruits of 
Heaven knows how may years of hard suffering and bitter labor ! I 
was without a halfpenny in my pocket, and entered the cabin to 
take this money, which I might hope to be able to repay to some 
next-of-kin of the poor fellow, should I ever get to hear of such a 
person, and which, in any case, would be more serviceable in my 
pocket than at the bottom of the sea, whither it was now tending. 
Having secured the money, which would be very useful to Helga 
and me, should we live to reach a port, I hastened on to the poop, 
heart-sickened by the dull noise of tne ceaseless crying forward. 

“ Now,” said I, “ let us lower away in the name of mercy, if only 
to free those wretches, half of whom may be already suffocated.” 

Helga and I got into the boat, and Abraham and his mate smartly 
slackened away the tackles. In a few moments we were water-borne, 
with the blocks released — for there was little left for me to learn in 
those days of the handling and management of a boat — and myself 
standing in the bow, holding on by the end of the painter which I 
had passed through a mizzen-channel plate. Abraham came down 
hand over hand by one of the tackles, and dropped into the boat, 
instantly falling to work to step the mast and clear away the sail. 

“Below there!” roared Jacob; “look out for these duds!” and 
down came first his boots, then his cap, then his coat, and then his 
waistcoat. “ I’ll jump overboard from this ’ere quarter !” he bawled. 
“ Stand by to pick me up !” 


320 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


The released helm had suffered the bark to come up into the wind, 
and she lay aback with a very slow leewardly trend. The breeze 
held the water briskly rippling, but the plain of the ocean was won- 
derfully smooth, with a faint, scarce noticeable swell lightly breath- 
ing in it. 

“ Mr. Tregarthen,” exclaimed Abraham, “ you’ll pull a stouter oar 
than Miss Nielsen. Supposin’ the lady stands by that there painter !” 

“ Right !” I exclaimed ; and on the girl entering the bows Abra- 
ham and I seized an oar apiece in readiness for Jacob’s leap. 

We lay close alongside, so that nothing was visible save the length 
of the ship’s black side and her overhanging yard-arms, and the thick 
lines of her shrouds rising to the lower mast-heads. It was a breath- 
less time. I had no fear for Jacob ; I guessed that the imprisoned 
wretches would be too dazed by the glaring sunshine and by the fresh 
air and by their deliverance from the stifling, smoke-thickened gloom 
of the forecastle to catch him even should they pursue him ere he 
jumped. Nevertheless, those moments of waiting, of expectation, 
of suspense, strung the nerves in one to the tension of fiddle-strings, 
and sensation was sharpened into a sort of anguish. 

Not more than three minutes elapsed — yet it seemed an hour. 
Then in a hoarse roar right over our heads sounded a shout : 

“ Look out, now !” 

“ Let go !” shrieked Abraham. 

Helga dropped the line that held the boat. 

“ Back astarn, now !” 

The fellow poled the boat off, while I put my whole strength into 
the oar I gripped. I caught a glimpse of Jacob poising and stoop- 
ing with his arms outstretched and his finger-ends together ; his 
body whizzed through the air, his arms and head striking the water 
as clean as a knife ; then up rose his purple face at a distance of three 
boat’s lengths. A thrust of the oar brought us alongside of him, 
and, while I grabbed him by the neck to help him inboard, Abraham 
was hoisting the sail, with Helga at the yoke-lines, quietly waiting for 
the sheet to be hauled aft. 

“ Bravely done, Jacob,” cried I. “ There’s a bottle of brandy in 
the stern-sheets. Take a pull at it ! The sun will speedily dry you.” 

“ Where’s the Malays ?” exclaimed Abraham. 

“ Didn’t stop to see,” answered Jacob. “ I chucked the stretch- 
ers off and sung down ‘Ye can come up,’ and then bolted.” 

“ There’s Nakier !” cried Helga. 

“And there’s Punmearaootty !” I called. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


321 


I was astounded by observing the figures of these two fellows quiet- 
ly gazing at us from the forecastle. Almost immediately after they 
had appeared others joined them, and before our boat had fairly got 
way upon her I counted the whole eleven of them. They stood in 
a body with Nakier in the thick of them surveying us as coolly as 
though their ship were at anchor, and all were well, and we were ob- 
jects of curiosity merely. 

“ Why, what’s the matter with ’em ?” cried Abraham. “Are they 
waiting for us to sing out to tell ’em what to do?” 

He had scarcely spoken the words when a loud shout of laughter 
broke from the dingy little mob, accompanied by much ironical 
flourishing of hands, while Nakier, springing onto the rail, pulled 
his hat off and repeatedly bowed to us. We were too much astound- 
ed to do more than gape at them. A minute later Nakier sprang back 
again onto the forecastle and piped out some orders in his melodi- 
ous voice, in which, assuredly, the most attentive ear could have de- 
tected nothing of the weakness that I had noticed in his cries to us 
through the half-closed hatch. Instantly the men distributed them- 
selves, one of them running to the wheel ; and while we continued 
to gaze, mute with amazement, the foretop-sail yard was swung, the 
bark’s head slowly fell off, the yards were then again braced up, and 
behold ! the little vessel, with her head at about south, was softly 
breaking the waters, with the after-yards swinging as they were 
squared by the braces to the north-east wind. 


CHAPTER XXYI. 

HOME. 

There was small need to go on staring and gaping for any length of 
time to discover that we were the victims of an out-and-away shrewd- 
er, cleverer, subtler stratagem than we had practised upon those dark- 
skins. I could not perceive any smoke rising from the forecastle. 
The fellows had been much too clever to accept the risk of suffoca- 
tion as a condition of their escape. Abraham had assured me that 
the bulkhead which divided the forepeak from the main hold was 
as strong as any timber wall could well be; but there was either 
some damage, some rent, some imperfection in the bulkhead, which 
provided access to the hold, or the crew, jobbing with Asiatic pa- 
31 


m 


322 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


tience at the plank with their sharp knives, had penetrated it, having 
had all last night and all this day to do the work in. 

A very little thing will make a very great deal of smoke. The 
burning of a small blanket might suffice to fill the hold of a much 
bigger ship than that bark with a smell of fire strong enough and 
rolls of vapor dense enough to fill her crew with consternation and 
drive them to the boats. While the fellows kept the hatch of the 
forepeak closed the smoke could hardly filter through into the fore- 
castle. I cau but conjecture how they managed ; but the triumphant 
evidence of their cleverness lay clear to our gaze in the spectacle of 
the bark slowly drawing away into the morning blue of the south 
and west. 

When the two boatmen saw how it was, I thought they would 
have jumped overboard in their passion. Abraham, as usual, flung 
his cap into the bottom of the boat and roared at the receding fig- 
ure of the ship as though she were hard by, and the men aboard at- 
tentively listening to him. Jacob, soaking wet, his black hair plas- 
tered upon his brow, and his face as purple now with temper as it 
had before been when he rose half-strangled out of the water, chimed 
in, and together they shouted. 

Then, turning upon me, Abraham bawled out that he would fol- 
low them. ^ 

“ This here’s a fast boat!” he vociferated. “ Here be oars to help 
her canvas. Think them colored scaramouches is a-going to rob me 
of my salwage? Is it to be all bad luck? — fust the Airly Mam , 
and now,” cried he, wildly pointing at the bark, “ a job that might 
ha’ been worth three or four hundred pound a man ! And to be 
tricked by such creatures ! to be made to feel sorry by their howl- 
ing and wailing! to watch ’em a-sailing away with what’s properly 
mpine and Jacob’s and yourn ! Whoy, there’s money enough for a 
fust-class marriage and the loife of a gentleman arterwards in a sin- 
gle share of the salwage that them beasts has robbed us of !” 

And so he went on ; and when he paused for breath Jacob fell 
a-shouting in a like strain. 

Meanwhile Helga, at the helm with a composed face, was making 
the boat hug the wind, and the little fabric, bowed down by the 
spread of lug till the line of her gunwale was within a hand-breadth 
of the water, was buzzing along at a speed that was fast dwindling 
the heap of square canvas astern into a toy-like space of white. At 
last Abraham and his mate fell silent ; they seated themselves, look- 
ing with dogged faces over their folded arms at the diminishing bark. 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


323 


For my part, long before the two honest fellows had made an end 
of their temper, I had ceased to think of the Malays and the trick 
they had put upon us. Here we were now in a little open boat — 
three men and a girl — in the heart of a spacious field of sea, with 
nothing in sight, and no land nearer to us than the Great Canary, 
which lay many leagues distant, and for which the north-east wind 
would not suffer us to head on a direct course. Here was a situa- 
tion heavy and significant enough to fill the mind, and leave no room 
for other thoughts. And yet I do not know that I was in the least 
degree apprehensive. The having the bark’s forecastle filled with a 
crew of fellows whose first business would have been to slaughter us 
three men on their breaking out had weighed intolerably upon my 
spirits. It was a dreadful danger, a horrible obligation now passed, 
and my heart felt comparatively light, forlorn and perilous as our 
situation still was. Then, again found a sort of support in the 
experiences I had passed through on the raft and in the lugger. 
The mind is always sensible of a shock on leaving the secure high 
deck of a ship, and looking abroad upon the vast, pitiless breast of 
Old Ocean from the low elevation of a boat’s side. I have heard of 
this sort of transition paralyzing the stoutest - hearted of a ship- 
wrecked crew ; for in no other situation does death seem to come 
nearer to one, floating close alongside, as it were, and chilling the 
hottest air of the tropics to the taste and quality of a frosty blast; 
and in no other situation does human helplessness find a like accent- 
uation, so illimitable are the reaches of the materialized eternity 
upon which the tiny structure rests, the very stars by night looking 
wan and faintly glittering, as though the foundered gaze had ren- 
dered their familiar and noted distances measureless compared to 
their height from a ship’s deck or from solid earth. 

But, as I have it in my mind to say, our experiences in the raft 
and the open lugger were so recent that it was impossible to feel all 
this vastness and nearness of the deep, and the unutterable solitude 
of our tiny speck of fabric in the midst of it, as though one came 
fresh from days of bulwarked heights and broad white decks to the 
situation. Helga surrendered the helm to Abraham, and the boat blew 
nimbly along over that summer stretch of sea; Abraham steering 
with a mortified face; Jacob leaning upon the weather gunwale with 
his chin upon his arms, sullenly gazing into vacancy ; and Helga and 
I a little way forward, talking in a low voice over the past. What 
new adventure was this we had entered upon? Should we come off 
with our lives after all? The tigress ocean had shown herself in 




324 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


many moods since I liad found myself within reach of her claws. 
She was slumbering now. The dusky lid of night was closing upon 
the huge, open, trembling blue eye. Should we have escaped her be- 
fore she aroused herself in wrath ? 

The sun was now low upon the horizon, and the sky was a flash- 
ing scarlet to the zenith, and of a violet dimness eastward, where a 
streak or two of delicate cloud caught the western glory and lay like 
some bits of chiselling in bronze in those tender depths. 

“ There ain’t nothing in sight,” said Jacob, resuming his seat after 
a long look round ; “ we shall have to go through the night.” 

“ Well, I’ve been out in worse weather than this,” exclaimed 
Abraham. 

‘‘Pity the breeze doesn’t draw more north or south,” said I. 
“ The boat sails finely. A straight course for Teneriffe would soon 
be giving us a sight of the Peak.”* 

“Ye and the lady ’ll ha’ seen enough, I allow, by this toime to 
make ye both want to get home,” said Abraham. “ Is there e’er a 
seafaring man who could tell of such a procession of smothering 
jobs all a-treading on each other’s heels? Fust the loss of the 
Hayneen [meaning the Anine \ , then the raft, then the foundering of 
the Airly Mam , then the feeding of Mussulmen with pork, then the 
skipper — as was a proper gentleman, tew — a-falling in love and after- 
wards being murdered, then that there fire, and now this here boat — 
and all for what ? Not a blooming penny to come out of the whole 
boiling!” And his temper giving way, down went his cap again, 
and he jumped to his feet with a thirsty look astern ; but fortunately 
by this time the bark was out of sight, otherwise there is no doubt 
we should have been regaled with another half-hour of longshore 
fomentation and invective. 

The breeze held steady, and the boat swept through it as though 
she were in tow of a steamer. The sun sank, the western hectic 
perished, and over our heads was spread the high night of hovering 
silver with much meteoric dust sailing amid the luminaries, and in 
the south-east stood the moon, in whose light the fabric of the boat 
and her canvas looked as though formed of ivory. We had brought 
a bull’s-eye lamp with us, and this we lighted that we might tell 
how to steer by a small compass which Abraham had taken from 
the captain’s cabin. We made as fair a meal as our little stock of 
provisions would yield, sitting in the moonshine eating and talking, 
dwelling much upon the incidents of the day, especially on the 
subtlety of the Malays, with occasional speculation on what yet lay 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


325 


before us ; and again and again one after another of us would rise 
to see if there was anything in sight in the pale hazy blending of 
the ocean rim with the sky, which the moon as it soared flooded 
with her light. 

To recount the passage of those hours would be merely to retrace 
our steps in this narrative. It was a tedious course of dozing, of 
watching, of whispering. At times I would start with the convic- 
tion that it was a ship’s light my eyes had fastened upon out in the 
silvery obscure, but never did it prove more than a star or some 
phosphorescent sparkling in the eye itself, as often happens in a 
gaze that is much strained and long vigilant. 

It was some time before five o’clock in the morning that I was 
startled from what was more a trance of weariness than of restful 
slumber by a shout : 

“ Here’s something coming at last !” cried the hoarse voice of 
Abraham. 

The moon was gone, but the starlight made the dark very clear 
and fine, and no sooner had I directed my eyes astern than I spied 
a steamer’s lights. The triangle of red, green, and white seemed 
directly in our wake, and so light was the breeze, and so still the sur- 
face of the ocean that the pulsing of the engines, with the respira- 
tory splashing of the water from the exhaust-pipe, penetrated the 
ear as distinctly as the tick of a watch held close. 

“ Flash the bull’s-eye, Jacob,” shouted Abraham, “ or she’ll be 
a-cutting of us down !” 

The fellow sprang into the stern-sheets and flourished the light. 

“ Now sing out altogether, when I count three,” cried Abraham 
again, “ Ship $hoy ! to make one word of it. Now then ! — wan, 
tew, three!” We united our voices in a hurricane yell of “Ship 
ahoy !” 

“ Again !” 

Once more we delivered the shout, with such a note in it as could 
only come from lungs made tempestuous by fear and desire of pres- 
ervation. Six or seven times did we thus hail that approaching 
lump of shadow, defined by its triangle of sparks, and in the in- 
tervals of our cries Jacob vehemently flourished the bull’s-eye lamp. 

Suddenly the green light disappeared. 

“ Ha ! She sees us !” exclaimed Abraham. 

The sound of pulsing ceased, and then with a swiftness due to 
the atmospheric illusion of the gloom, but that, nevertheless, seemed 
incredible in a vessel whose engines had stopped, the great mass of 


326 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


shadow came shaping and forming itself out within her own length 
of us into the aspect of a large brig-rigged steamer, dark as the 
tomb along the length of her hull, but with a stream of lamplight 
touching her bridge, from which came a clear strong hail : 

“ Boat ahoy ! What is wrong with you ?” 

“ We’re adrift, and want ye to pick us up !” roared Abraham. 
“ Stand by to give us the end of a line !” 

Within five minutes the boat, with sail down and mast unstepped, 
was alongside the motionless steamer, and ten minutes later she was 
veering astern, and the four of us, with such few articles as we had 
to hand up, safe aboard, the engines champing, the bow-wave seeth- 
ing, and the commander of the vessel asking us for our story. 

On the morning of Saturday, November 18th, the brig-rigged 
steamer Mosquito , from the west coast of Africa for London, stopped 
her engines and came to a stand off the port of Falmouth, to put 
Helga and me ashore at that town by the aid of a little West-coun- 
try smack which had been spoken and now lay alongside. 

The English coast should have been abreast of us days earlier than 
this ; but very shortly after the Mosquito had picked us up something 
went wrong in her engine-room ; our passage to Madeira was so slow 
as to be little more than a dull and tedious crawling over the waters ; 
and we were delayed for some considerable time at Funchal while 
the chief engineer and his assistants got the engines into a condition 
to drive the great metal hull to her destination. 

But now the two bold headlands of the fair coast of Falmouth — 
the tenderest, most gem-like bit of scenery, I do honestly believe, 
not that England only, but that this whole great world of rich and 
varied pictures has to show — lay plain in our eyes. Streaks of snow 
upon the heights shone like virgin silver in the crisp, brilliant No- 
vember sun of that wintry Channel morning, and between the head- 
lands the hills beyond showed in masses of a milk-white softness 
poised cloud-like in the keen blue distance, as though by watching 
you would see them soar. 

I thanked the captain heartily for his kindness, and then, standing 
in the gangway with my sweetheart at my side, I asked for Abra- 
ham and Jacob that we might bid them farewell. The worthy fel- 
lows, endeared to me by the association of peril bravely met and 
happily passed, promptly arrived. I pulled out the money that I 
had taken from Mr. Jones’s berth, and said : “ Here are thirteen 
pounds and some shillings, Abraham, which belonged to that poor 


THE ROMANCE OE A MONTH. 


32 * 


mate whom the Malays killed. Here is half the amount for you and 
Jacob ; the other half will carry Miss Nielsen and me to Tintrenale. 
You need not scruple to take it. I will make inquiries if the poor 
creature had any relatives, and, if I can hear of them, the money 
will be repaid. And now you will both of you remember a promise 
I made to you aboard the Early Morn. Let me have your addresses 
at Deal ” — for they were proceeding to the Downs in the steamer. 

They told me where they lived. I then extended my hand. 

“ God bless you both !” I said. “ I shall never forget you !” And, 
indeed, more than that I could not have said at the moment, for my 
throat tightened when I looked into their honest faces and thought 
how Helga and I owed our lives to them. 

It was a hearty farewell among the four of us ; much hand-shak- 
ing and God-blessing of one another, and when we had entered the 
smack and shoved off, the two poor fellows ‘got upon the bulwark 
rail and cheered us again and again, with such contortions of form 
and violence of gesture that I feared to see them fall overboard. 
But the steamer was now in motion, and in a very little while the 
two figures were indistinguishable. I have never seen them since ; 
yet, as I write these words and think of them, rny heart is full ; if 
x they be living I earnestly hope they are well and doing well; and 
if these lines meet their eye they will know that the heartiest of 
hearty welcomes awaits them whenever they shall find themselves 
near my little Cornish home. 

The 18th was a Saturday, and I made up my mind to stay through- 
out Sunday at Falmouth, that I might have time to receive a line 
from Mr. Trembath, to whom my first business must be to send news 
of my safe return, that he might deliver it with all caution to my 
mother ; for it was not to be foreseen how a sudden shock of joy 
might serve her. So we were no sooner ashore than I wrote to Mr. 
Trembath, and then Helga and I quitted the hotel to make some 
purchases, taking care to reserve enough to pay our travelling ex- 
penses home. 

Next morning we went to church, and, kneeling side by side, we 
offered up the thanks of our deeply-grateful hearts for our preser- 
vation from the many dark and deadly perils we had encountered, 
and for our restoration, sound in health and limb, to a land we had 
often talked of and had as often feared we should never again be- 
hold. 

It was a quiet holiday with us afterwards : a brief passage of 
hours whose happiness was alloyed only by anxiety to get news of 


328 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


my mother. Our love for each other was true aild deep — how true 
and how deep I am better able to know now than I did then, be- 
fore time had tested the metal of our hearts. I was proud of my 
Danish sweetheart, of her heroic nature, of her many endearing 
qualities of tenderness, goodness, simple piety, of her girlish gentle- 
ness of character, which, in the hour of trial and of danger, could 
harden into the courage of the lioness without loss, as I knew, of the 
sweetness and the bloom of her maidenhood. I felt, too, she was 
mine in a sense novel, indeed, in the experiences of love-making : I 
mean, by the right of having saved her life, of plucking her, as it were, 
out of the fury of the sea ; for we were both very conscious that, but 
for my having been aboard the Anine , she must have perished, incapa- 
ble of leaving her dying father even had she been able with her girl’s 
hands alone to save herself, as between us we had saved ourselves. 

But not to dwell upon this, nor to recount our walks on that 
quiet November Sabbath day, our exquisite and impassioned enjoy- 
ment of the scenes and sights and aromas of this favored space of 
land after our many privations and after the sickening iteration of 
the ocean girdle, flawless for days and making our sight ache with 
gazing and with expectation : not to dwell upon this and much more 
that memory loves to recall — Monday morning’s post brought me a 
letter from Mr. Trembath. My mother was well — he had told her 
I was at Falmouth — I was to come to her without delay. It was a 
long letter, full of congratulations, of astonishment, but — my mother 
was well! She knew I was at Falmouth! All the rest was idle 
words to my happiness, full of news as the letter was, too. Helga 
laughed and cried and kissed me, and an hour later we were in a 
railway carriage on our way to Tintrenale. 

On our arrival we immediately proceeded to the house of Mr. 
Trembath. We were on foot, and on our way from the railway 
station, as we turned the corner of the hilly road, that led to the 
town, the whole view of the spacious bay opened upon our eyes. 
We instantly stopped, and I grasped Helga’s hand while we stood 
looking. It was a keen, bright blue morning, the air of a frosty, of 
an almost prismatic brilliance of purity owing to the shining ranges 
of snow upon the slopes and downs of the headlands of the cliffs. 
The Twins and the Deadlow Rock showed their black fangs with a 
recurrent flash of light as the sun smote them while wet from the 
lift of the swell that was rolling into the bay. 

“Yonder is where the Anine brought up. Oh, Helga, do you re- 
member 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


329 


She answered me by caressing my shoulder with her cheek. 

White gulls were hovering off the pier. To the right was the 
life-boat house out of which we had launched on that dark and des- 
perate night of October 21st. The weathercock crowning the tall 
spire of St. Saviour’s was glowing like gilt in the blue. Far off, at 
the foot of Hurricane Point, was the cloudy glimmer of boiling wa- 
ter, the seething of the Atlantic fold recoiling from the giant base. 
A smart little schooner lay half a mile out on a line with the pier, 
and, as she rolled, her copper glistened ruddily upon the dark-blue 
surface. Sounds of life arose from the town ; the ringing of bells, 
the rattling of vehicles, the cries of the hawker. 

“ Come, my darling !” said I, and we proceeded. 

I shall never forget the look of astonishment with which Mr. 
Trembath received us. We were shown into his study — his servant 
was a new hand and did not know me ; she admitted us as a brace 
of parishioners, I dare say. “ Great Heaven ! it is Hugh Tregarthen !” 
he cried, starting out of his chair as though a red-hot iron had been 
applied to him. He wrung both my hands, overwhelming me with 
exclamations. I could not speak. He gave me no opportunity to 
introduce Helga. Indeed, he did not seem sensible of her presence. 

“Alive, after all! A resurrection, in good faith ! What a night 
it was, d’ye remember? Ha! ha!” he cried, clinging to my hands 
and staring, with the wildest earnestness of expression, into my face, 
whilq his eyes danced with congratulation and gratification. “ We 
gave you up. You ought to be dead — not a doubt of it ! No young 
fellow should return to life who has been mourned for as you were !” 
Thus he rattled on. 

“But my mother — my mother, Mr. Trembath! How is my 
mother ?” 

“ Well, well, perfectly well — looking out for you. Why are you 
not with her instead of with me ? But to whom am I talking ? To 
Hugh Tregarthen’s ghost ?” 

Here his eyes went to Helga, and his face underwent a change. 

“ This young lady is a friend of yours?” and he gave her an odd 
sort of puzzling, inquisitive bow. „ 

“ If you will give me leave, Mr. Trembath. I have not yet had a 
chance. First let me introduce you to Miss Helga Nielsen, my be- 
trothed — the young lady whom before long will be Mrs. Hugh Tre- 
garthen, so named by your friendly offices.” 

He peered at me to see if I was joking, then stepped up to her, 
extended his hand, and courteously greeted her. Sweet the dear 


330 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


heart looked as she stood with her hand in his, smiling and blush- 
ing, her blue eyes filled with emotion, that darkened them to the 
very complexion of tears, and that made them the prettier for the 
contrast of their expression with her smile. 

“ My dear mother being well,” said I, “ the delay of a quarter of an 
hour can signify nothing. Let us seat ourselves that I may briefly 
tell you my story and explain how it happens that Helga and I are 
here instead of going straight to my home.” 

He composed himself to listen, and I began. I gave him our ad- 
ventures from the hour of my boarding the Anine , and I observed 
that as I talked he incessantly glanced at Helga with looks of grow- 
ing respect, satisfaction, and pleasure. 

“Now,” said I, when I had brought my narrative down to the 
time of our being picked up by the Mosquito , never suffering his 
repeated exclamations of amazement, his frequent starts and ques- 
tions, to throw me off the straight course of my recital, “ my wish 
is to see my mother alone, and when I have had about an hour with 
her I want you to bring Helga to our home.” 

“ I quite understand,” he exclaimed ; “ a complication of surprises 
would certainly be undesirable. You will prepare the way. I shall 
know how to congratulate her. I shall be able to speak from my 
heart,” said he, smiling at Helga. 

“One question, Mr. Trembath. What of my poor life-boat’s 
crew ?” 

“Three of them were drowned,” he answered; “the rest came 
ashore alive in their belts. It was a very astonishing preservation. 
The gale shifted and blew in a hurricane off the land, as of course 
you remember; yet the drive of the seas stranded the survivors down 
upon the southern end of the esplanade. They were all washed in 
together — a most extraordinary occurrence, as though they had been 
secured by short lengths of line.” 

“And they are all well ?” 

“ All. Poor Bobby Tucker and Lance Hudson were almost spent, 
almost gone; but there was a Preventive man standing close by the 
spot to where the sea washed them ; he rushed away for help ; they 
were carried to their homes — and what a story they had to tell ! 
The poor Danes who had jumped into the boat were drowned to a 
man.” 

Helga clasped her hands, and whispered some exclamation to her- 
self in Danish. 

I sat for another five minutes, and then rose with a significant 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


331 


look at the clock, that Mr. Trembath might remember my sweet- 
heart was not to 4>e absent from me for more than an hour. I then 
kissed her and left the house, and made my way to my mother’s 
home. 

It was but a short step, yet it took me a long while to reach the 
door. I believe I was stopped at least ten times. Tintrenale is a 
little place; the ripple of a bit of news dropped into that small 
pool swiftly spreads to the narrow boundaries of it, and, though Mr. 
Trembath had only heard from me on the preceding day, the whole 
town knew that I was alive, that I was at Falmouth, that I was on 
my way home. But for this I might have been stared at as a ghost, 
and have nimbly stepped past faces turned in dumb astonishment 
upon me. Now I had to shake hands; now I had to answer ques- 
tions, breaking away with what grace I could. 

When I reached my home there was no need to knock. My dear 
mother was at the window, and, to judge from the celerity with 
which the door flew open, she had stationed a servant in the hall 
ready to admit me at her first cry. 

“ Dear mother !” 

“ My darling child !” 

She strained me to her heart in silence. My throat was swelled, 
and she could not speak for weeping. But tears of rejoicing are 
soon dried, and in a few minutes I was on the sofa at her side, our 
hands locked. 

In the first hurry and joy of such a meeting as this much will be 
said that the memory cannot carry. There was a score of questions 
to answer and put, none of which had any reference whatever to my 
strange experiences. She was looking somewhat thin and worn, as 
though fretting had grown into a habit which she could not easily 
shake off. Her snow-white hair, her dear old face, her dim eyes, in 
which lay a heart-light of holy, reverent exultation, the trembling 
fingers with which she caressed my hair — the homely little parlor, 
too, with the dance of the fire-play in the shady corners of the 
room, its twenty details of pictures, sideboard — I know not what 
else — all my life familiar to me, upon which, indeed, the eyes of my 
boyhood first opened — I found it as hard to believe that I was in 
my old home again at last, that my mother’s voice was sounding in 
my ear — that it was her beloved hand which toyed with my hair — 
as at times I had found it hard to believe that I was at sea, floating 
helplessly aboard a tiny raft under the stars. 

“ Mother, did you receive the message that was written upon a 


332 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


board, and read by the people of the Cape steamer homeward- 
bound ?” • 

“ Yes, four days ago ; but only four days ago, Hugh. I believed 
I should never see you again, my child.” 

“ Well, thank God it is well with us both — aye, well with three 
of us,” said I; “the third presently to be as precious in this little 
home, mother, as ever a one of us that has slept beneath its roof.” 

“ What is this you are saying ?” she exclaimed. 

“Be composed, and give me your ear and follow me in the ad- 
ventures I am going to relate to you,” said I, pulling out my watch 
and looking at it. 

My words would readily account for her perceiving something in 
my mind of a significance quite outside that of my adventures ; but 
the instincts of the mother went further than that ; I seemed to catch 
a look in her as though she half guessed at what I must later on tell 
her. It was an expression of mingled alarm and remonstrance, al- 
most as auticipative as though she had spoken. God knows why it 
was she should thus suggest that she had lighted upon what was still 
a secret to her, seeing, as one might suppose, that the very last no- 
tion which would occur to her was that I had found a sweetheart 
out upon the ocean in these few weeks of my absence from home. 
But there is a subtle quality in the blood of those closely related 
which will interpret to the instincts as though the eye had the power 
of exploring the recesses of the heart. 

I began my story. As briefly as I might, for there was no longer 
an hour before me, I related my adventures step by step. I had 
only to pronounce the girl’s name to witness the little movement of 
jealousy and suspicion hardening in the compressed lips and graver 
attention of the dear old soul. I had much to say of Helga. In 
truth, my story was nearly all about Helga : her devotion to her fa- 
ther, her marvellous spirit in the direst extremity, her pious resigna- 
tion to the stroke that had made her an orphan. I put before my 
mother a picture of the raft, the starlit gloom of the night, the dying 
man with his wife’s portrait in his hand. I told her of Helga’s he- 
roic struggle with her anguish of bereavement, her posture of prayer 
as I launched the corpse, her prayer again in the little forepeak of 
the lugger, where the dim lantern faintly disclosed the picture of her 
mother, before which the sweet heart knelt. My love for her, my 
pride in her were in my face as I spoke ; I felt the warm blood in 
my cheek, and emotion made my poor words eloquent. 

Sometimes my mother would break out with an exclamation of 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


333 


wonder or of admiration, sometimes she would give a sigh of sym- 
pathy ; tears stood in her eyes while I was telling her of the poor 
Danish captain’s death and of Helga kneeling in prayer in the little 
forepeak. When I had made an end, she gazed earnestly at me for 
some moments in silence, and then said : 

“ Hugh, where is she ?” 

“ At Mr. Trembath’s !”. 

“ She is in Tintrenale ?” 

“ At Mr. Trembath’s, mother.” 

“ Why did you not bring her here ?” 

“ I wished to break the news.” 

“But she is your friend, Hugh. She was a good daughter, and 
she is a good girl. I must love her for that.” 

I kissed her. “ You will love her when you see her. You will 
love her more and more as you know her better and better. She is 
to be my wife. Oh, mother, you will welcome her — you will take 
her to your heart, so friendless as she is and so poor ; so tender, too, 
so gentle, so affectionate ?” 

She sat musing a while, playing with her fingers. That coloring 
of suspicion, of a mother’s jealousy, which I have spoken of, had 
yielded to my tale. She was thinking earnestly, and with an expres- 
sion of kindness. 

“You are young to marry, Hugh.” 

“ No, no, mother !” 

“She is very young, too. We are poor, dear; and she has noth- 
ing, you tell me.” 

“ She is one of those girls, mother, who having nothing yet have 
all.” 

She smiled, and stroked my hand, and then turned her head as 
though in a reverie, and fixed her eyes for a little space upon my fa- 
ther’s picture. 

“ We know nothing of her parents,” said she. 

« She has her mother’s portrait. It tells its own story. We know 
who and what her father was. But you shall question her, mother. 
I see her kneeling at your side telling you her little life-history.” 

At this moment the house-door knocker was set chattering by a 
hand that I very well knew could belong to no other man than Mr. 
Trembath. I was too impatient to await the attendance of the serv- 
ant, and rushing to the door brought Helga into the parlor. The 
clergyman followed, and as Helga stood in the door-way he peered 
over her shoulder at my mother. The dear girl was pale and perv* 


334 


MY DANISH SWEETHEART: 


oils, yet sweet and fresh and fair beyond words did she look, and my 
heart leaped up in my breast to the instant thought that my mother 
could not see her without being won. 

The pause was but for a moment; my mother rose and looked at 
the girl. It was a swift, penetrating gaze, that vanished in a fine, 
warm, cordial smile. 

“ Welcome to our little home, Helga !” said she ; and stepping up 
to her she took her by the hands, kissed her on both cheeks, and 
drew her to the sofa. 

“ Well, good-bye for the present, Hugh,” exclaimed Mr. Trembath. 

“ I will accompany you,” said I. 

“ No,” cried my mother, “ stay here, Hugh ! This is your proper 
place,” and she motioned for me to sit beside her. 

Mr. Trembath, with a friendly nod, disappeared. 

My story comes to an end as the worthy little clergyman closes 
the door upon the three of us. When I sat down to this work, I 
designed no more than the recital of the adventures of a month ; and 
now I put down my pen very well satisfied that I leave you who 
have followed me in no doubt as to the issue of Helga’s introduc- 
tion to my mother, though it would go beyond my scheme to say 
more on that head. I found a sweetheart at sea, and made her my 
wife ashore, and a time came when my mother was as proud of her 
Danish daughter as I was of my Danish bride. 

There had been much talk between Helga and me, when we were 
on the ocean, of our going to Holding ; but down to the present time 
we have not visited that place. Her friends there are few, and the 
journey a long one ; yet we are constantly talking of making an ex- 
cursion to Copenhagen, and the mere fancy, perhaps, gives us as 
much pleasure as the trip itself would. Through the friendly offices 
of the Danish vice - consul at Falmouth, we were enabled to realize 
upon the poor few effects which Captain Nielsen had left behind him 
in his little house at Holding, and we also obtained payment of the 
money for which he had insured his own venture in the freight that 
had foundered. 

There were moments when I would think with regret of The Light 
of the World. No doubt, could we have brought her to England or 
to a port, our share of the salvage would have made a little dowry 
for Helga, for, though I had not seen the vessel’s papers, I might 
reasonably suppose the value of the cargo, added to that of the bark 
herself, amounted to several thousands of pounds, and as there were 


THE ROMANCE OF A MONTH. 


335 


but four to share, Helga’s and my division would not have failed to 
yield us a good round sum. 

And what was the end of that ship ? I have heard the story : it 
found its way into the newspapers, but in brief, insufficient para- 
graphs only. The whole narrative of her adventures after we had 
been tricked out of her by her colored crew is one of the strangest 
romances of the sea that my experience has encountered, student as 
I am of maritime affairs. Some of these days I may hope to tell the 
story ; but for the present you will consider that I have said enough. 


/ 


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THE ODD NUMBER SERIES. 


TEN TALES BY FRANCOIS COPPEE. Translated by Walter 
Learned. With Fifty Pen-and-ink Drawings by Albert 
E. Sterner, and an Introduction by Brander Matthews. 
16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 

The ten little stories are all too brief— it is their only fault. They are full of 
grace, wit, and feeling. — Springfield Republican. 

MODERN GHOSTS. Selected and Translated from the Works of 
Guy de Maupassant, Pedro Antonio de Alarcon, Alexan- 
der Kielland, Leopold Kompert, Gustavo A. Becquer, 
and G. Magherini-Graziani. An Introduction by George 
William Curtis. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 

A thoroughly artistic and charming contribution to that class of literature of 
which imaginative minds never weary.— Boston Transcript. 

THE HOUSE BY THE MEDLAR-TREE. By Giovanni Yerga. 
Translated from the Italian by Mary A. Craig. An Intro- 
duction by W. D. Howells. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 

The dialogue throughout is rich in color, natural in movement, and very char- 
acteristic. The analysis of character is always unobtrusive, subtle, and incisive. 
— N. T. Commercial Advertiser. 

PASTELS IN PROSE. (From the French.) Translated by Stu- 
art Merrill. With 150 Illustrations (including Frontispiece 
in Color) by H. W. McVickar. An Introduction by W. D. 
Howells. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 

In the department of pure literature a more notable translation in more appro- 
priate dress has rarely come to our table. — Boston Advertiser. 

MARIA : A South American Romance. By Jorge Isaacs. Trans- 
lated by Rollo Ogden. An Introduction by Thomas A. Jan- 
vier. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 

A beautiful story beautifully told; and so admirable does the translation seem 
to be that the reader is unconscious of a single alien note.— Academy, London. 

THE ODD NUMBER: Thirteen Tales by Guy de Maupassant. 
The Translation by Jonathan Sturges. An Introduction by 
Henry James. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 

The tales included in “The Odd Number ” are little masterpieces, and done into 
very clear, sweet, simple English. — W. D. Howells. 


OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION. 


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BY CONSTANCE F. WOOLSON, 


JUPITER LIGHTS. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25. 
EAST ANGELS. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25. 
ANNE. A Novel. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25. 
FOR THE MAJOR. A Novelette. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00. 

CASTLE NOWHERE. Lake-Country Sketches. 16mo, 
Cloth, $1 00. 

RODMAN THE KEEPER. Southern Sketches. 16mo, 
Cloth, $1 00. 

Delightful touches justify those who see many points of analogy 
between Miss Woolson and George Eliot. — N. Y. Times. 

For tenderness and purity of thought, for exquisitely delicate 
sketching of characters, Miss Woolson is unexcelled among writers 
of fiction. — New Orleans Picayune. 

Characterization is Miss Woolson’s forte. Her men and women 
are not mere puppets, but original, breathing, and finely contrasted 
creations. — Chicago Tribune. 

Miss Woolson is one of the few novelists of the day who know 
how to make conversation, how to individualize the speakers, how 
to exclude rabid realism without falling into literary formality. — 
N. Y. Tribune. 

Constance Fenimore Woolson may easily become the novelist 
laureate. — Boston Globe. 

Miss Woolson has a graceful fancy, a ready wit, a polished style, 
and conspicuous dramatic power; while her skill in the develop- 
ment of a story is very remarkable. — London Life. 

Miss Woolson never once follows the beaten track of the orthodox 
novelist, but strikes a new and richly loaded vein which, so far, is 
all her own ; and thus we feel, on reading one of her works, a fresh 
sensation, and we put down the book with a sigh to think our pleas- 
ant task of reading it is finished. The author’s lines must have 
fallen to her in very pleasant places ; or she has, perhaps, within 
herself the wealth of womanly love and tenderness she pours so 
freely into all she writes. Such books as hers do much to elevate 
the moral tone of the day — a quality sadly wanting in novels of the 
time. — Whitehall B&oiew, London. 


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By CAPT. CHARLES KING 


CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK, AND STORIES OP 
ARMY LIFE. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25. 

A WAR-TIME WOOING. Illustrated by R. F. Zogbaum. 
pp. iv., 196. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 00. 

BETWEEN THE LINES. A Story of the War. Illustrated 
by Gilbert Gaul. pp. iv., 312. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25. 

In all of Captain King’s stories the author holds to lofty ideals of man- 
hood and womanhood, and inculcates the lessons of honor, generosity, 
courage, and self-control. — Literary World, Boston. 

The vivacity and charm which signally distinguish Captain King’s 
pen. . . . He occupies a position in American literature entirely his own. 

. . His is the literature of honest sentiment, pure and tender. — N. Y. Press . 

A romance by Captain King is always a pleasure, because he has so 
complete a mastery of the subjects with which he deals. . . . Captain 
King has few rivals in his domain. . . . The general tone of Captain King’s 
stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and sol- 
dierly ; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most unconvention- 
al situations. — Epoch, N. Y. 

All Captain King’s stories are full of spirit and with the true ring about 
them. — Philadelphia Item. 

Captain King’s stories of army life are so brilliant and intense, they 
have such a ring of true experience, and his characters are so lifelike and 
vivid that the announcement of a new one is always received with pleas- 
ure. — New Haven Palladium. 

Captain King is a delightful story-teller. — Washington Post. 

In the delineation of war scenes Captain King’s style is crisp and vig- 
orous, inspiring in the breast of the reader a thrill of genuine patriotic fer- 
vor. — Boston Commonwealth. 

Captain King is almost without a rival in the field he has chosen. . . . 
His style is at once vigorous and sentimental in the best sense of that 
word, so that his novels are pleasing to young men as well as young 
women. — Pittsburgh Bulletin. 

It is good to think that there is at least one man who believes that all 
the spirit of romance and chivalry has not yet died out of the world, and 
that there are as brave and honest hearts to-day as there were in the 
days of knights and paladins. — Philadelphia Record. 


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BY ELIZABETH B. CUSTEft. 


FOLLOWING THE GUIDON. Illustrated, pp. xx., 369. 
Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. 

The story is a thrillingly interesting one, charmingly told. . . . Mrs. 
Custer gives sketches photographic in their fidelity to fact, and touches 
them with the brush of the true artist just enough to give them col- 
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hardly lay it down until it is finished. — Boston Traveller. 

An admirable book. Mrs. Custer was almost as good a soldier as 
her gallant husband, and her book breathes the true martial spirit. — St. 
Louis Republic. 

Mrs. Custer has the faculty of making her reader see and feel with 
her. . . . The whole country is indebted to Mrs. Custer for so faithfully 
depicting phases of a kind of army life now almost passed away. — 
Boston Advertiser. 

The book is crowded with the amusing and exciting details of a life 
strange indeed to those who have spent their time sitting tranquilly at 
home. Her observation is so quick, her descriptive powers so pictu- 
resque, that the camp and the skirmish seem to live before the reader. 
— Springfield Republican. 

BOOTS AND SADDLES ; Or, Life in Dakota with Gen- 
eral Custer. With Portrait of General Custer, pp. 312. 
12mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 50. 

A book of adventure is interesting reading, especially when it is all 
true, as is the case with “Boots and Saddles.”. . .Mrs. Custer does not 
obtrude the fact that sunshine and solace went with her to tent and 
fort, but it inheres in her narrative none the less, and as a consequence 
“these simple annals of our daily life,” as she calls them, are never 
dull nor uninteresting. — Evangelist, N. Y. 

We have no hesitation in saying that no better or more satisfactory 
life of General Custer could have been written. Indeed, we may as 
well speak the thought that is in us, and say plainly that we know of no 
biographical work anywhere which we count better than this. . . . It is 
enriched in every chapter with illustrative anecdotes and incidents, and 
here and there a little life story of pathetic interest is told as an episode. 
— N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 

Every member of a Western garrison will want to read this book ; 
every person in the East who is interested in Western life will want to 
read it, too ; and every girl or boy who has a healthy appetite for ad- 
venture will be sure to get it. It is bound to have an army of readers 
that few authors can expect. — Philadelphia Press , 


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13 T Either of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the 
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SEVEN DREAMERS. * 

A Collection of Seven Stories. By Annie Trumbull Slos- 
son. pp. 286. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25. 


A charming collection of character sketches and stories — humorous, 
pathetic, and romantic — of New England country life. The volume in- 
cludes “How Faith Came and Went,” “Botany Bay,” “Aunt Randy,” 
“ Fishin’ Jimmy,” “ Butterneggs,” “ Deacon Pheby’s Selfish Natur’,” and 
“ A Speakin’ Ghost.” 


They are of the best sort of “ dialect ” stories, full of humor and quaint 
conceits. Gathered in a volume, with a frontispiece which is a wonderful 
character sketch, they make one of the best contributions to the light 
literature of this season. — Observer , N. Y. 

Mrs. Slosson has in these stories explored an entirely new field in fiction, 
and her work has the merit of unquestionable individuality of method as 
well as novelty of theme. — Boston Beacon. 

These stories are redolent of the New England coast — salty, pathetic, 
and grim for the most part, and true to the New England nature, so ret* 
icent, self-contained, and undemonstrative. ... In their peculiar field, 
nothing better has ever been done. — Newark Advertiser. 

Stories told with much skill, tenderness, and kindliness, so much so 
that the reader is drawn powerfully towards the poor subjects of them, 
and soon learns to join the author in looking behind their peculiarities 
and recognizing special spiritual gifts in them. — N. Y. Tribune. 

These stories are of such originality, abounding in deep pathos and 
tenderness, that one finds himself in perfect accord with the writer as he 
reads of the hallucinations of these heroes. — Watchman , Boston. 

Mrs. Slosson’s sympathetic appreciation, her faithful reproduction of the 
vernacular, and, above all, her tender humor, which in its highest form is 
near akin to pathos, are admirable, and appeal, by the force of her simple, 
direct style, to the heart and head of the reader. — Chicago Tribune. 

Dreamers of a singular kind, they affect us like the inhabitants of 
allegories — a walk of literary art in which we have had no master since 
the pen dropped from the faint and feeble fingers of Hawthorne, and 
which seems native to Mrs. Slosson. — N. Y. Mail and Express. 

The sweetness, the spiciness, the aromatic taste of the forest has crept 
into these tales. — Philadelphia Ledger. 

These tales evince a rare study and knowledge of human nature, and 
the possession of a greater than Prospero’s world to evoke the pert and 
nimble spirit of mirth, or the tears brought by a genuine power of pathos. 
— Hartford Times. 


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THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES. 

A Tale of the Times of Scanderbeg and the Fall of Constam 
tinople. By James M. Ludlow, D.D., Litt.D. pp. iv., 
404. 16mo, Cloth, $1 50. 

The author writes clearly and easily ; his descriptions are often of much 
brilliancy, while the whole setting of the story is of that rich Oriental char- 
acter which fires the fancy. — Boston Courier. 

Strong in its central historical character, abounding in incident, rapid 
and stirring in action, animated and often brilliant in style. — Christian 
Union , N. Y. 

Something new and striking interests us in almost every chapter. The 
peasantry of the Balkans, the training and government of the Janizaries, 
the interior of Christian and Moslem camps, the horrors of raids and bat- 
tles, the violence of the Sultan, the tricks of spies, the exploits of heroes, 
engage Mr. Ludlow’s fluent pen. — N. Y. Tribune. 

Dr. Ludlow’s style is a constant reminder of Walter Scott, and the book 
is to retain a permanent place in literature. — Observer , N. Y. 

An altogether admirable piece of work — picturesque, truthful, and dra- 
matic. — Newark Advertiser. 

A most romantic, enjoyable tale. ... As affording views of inner life in 
the East as long ago as the middle of the fifteenth century, this tale ought 
to have a charm for many; but it is full enough of incident, wherever 
the theatre of its action might be found, to do this. — Troy Press. 

The author has used his material with skill, weaving the facts of history 
into a story crowded with stirring incidents and unexpected situations, and 
a golden thread of love-making, under extreme difficulties, runs through 
the narrative to a happy issue. — Examiner , N. Y. 

One of the strongest and most fascinating historical novels of the last 
quarter of a century. — Boston Pilot. 

A refreshing and remarkable production. There is here no wearisome 
soul-searching, and no minute analysis of the trivial, but a straightforward 
romance, written almost in the great manner of Scott. As a story, it is 
absorbingly interesting from first page to last. As a resuscitation of 
history, it has the accuracy without the pedantry of the works of German 
and other moderns. As a presentation of the physical aspects of the 
Balkan peninsula, it is very striking, and shows close familiarity with the 
regions described. As a study of the life and manner of the remote 
epoch with which it deals, it exhibits, without ostentation, a careful and 
minute research ; and as a literary composition, it has more merits and 
fewer faults than most of the books written in this age of hurried pro- 
duction. — Dial, Chicago. 


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BY LAFCADIO HEARN. 

Two Years in the French West Indies. By Lafcadio 
Hearn, pp. 517. Copiously Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, 
$2 00 . 

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard. By Anatole France. 
The Translation and Introduction by Lafcadio Hearn. 
8 vo, Paper, 50 cents. 

Chita: A Memory of Last Island. By Lafcadio Hearn. 
pp. vi., 204. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. 


To such as are unfamiliar with Mr. Hearn’s writings, “Chita” will 
be a revelation of how near language can approach the realistic pow- 
er of actual painting. His very words seem to have color— his pages 
glow — his book is a kaleidoscope. — JY. Y. Mail and Express. 

A powerful story, rich in descriptive passages. . . . The tale is a 
tragic one, but it shows remarkable imaginative force, and is one 
that will not soon be forgotten by the reader.— Saturday Evening 
Gazette, Boston. 

Lafcadio Hearn’s exquisite story. ... A tale full of poetry and 
vivid description that nobody will want to miss. — N. Y. Sun. 

A pathetic little tale, simple but deeply touching, and told with 
the beauty of phrasing and the deep and subtle sympathy of the 
poet. — Chicago Times. 

There is no page — no paragraph even — but holds more of vital 
quality than would suffice to set up an ordinary volume. — The 
Epoch, N.Y. 

... A wonderfully sustained effort in imaginative prose, full of 
the glamour and opulent color of the tropics and yet strong with 
the salt breath of the sea. — San Francisco Chronicle. 

Mr. Hearn is a poet, and in “ Chita ” he has produced a prose poem 
of much beauty. . . . His style is tropical, full of glow and swift 
movement and vivid impressions, reflecting strong love and keen 
sympathetic observation of nature, picturesque and flexible, luxuri- 
ant in imagery, and marked by a delicate perception of effective val- 
ues. — N. Y. Tribune. 

In the too few pages of this wonderful little book tropical Nature 
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known. All the splendor of her skies and the terrors of her seas 
make to themselves a language. So living a book has scarcely been 
given to our generation. — Boston Transcript. 


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BEN-HUE: A TALE OF THE CHRIST. 


By Lew Wallace. New Edition, pp. 552. 16mo, 

Cloth, $1 50. 

Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature 
of this romance does not often appear in works of fiction. . . . Some 
of Mr. Wallace’s writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. 
The scenes described in the New Testament are rewritten with the 
power and skill of an accomplished master of style. — W. Y. Times. 

Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans 
at the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and 
brilliant. ... We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; 
we witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Ro- 
man galley, domestic interiors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among 
the tribes of the desert ; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated 
Roman youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty 
of exciting incident ; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing. — 
N. Y. Tribune. 

From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader’s 
interest will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pro- 
nounced by all one of the greatest novels of the day. — Boston Post. 

It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and 
there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc., 
to greatly strengthen the semblance. — Boston Commonwealth. 

“Ben-Hur” is interesting, and its characterization is fine and 
strong. Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which 
the scene is laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable 
attention to realize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jeru- 
salem and Roman life at Antioch at the time of our Saviour’s ad- 
vent. — Examiner , N. Y. 

It is really Scripture history of Christ’s time clothed gracefully 
and delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction. . . . 
Few late works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and interest. — 
N. Y. Graphic. 

One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real 
and warm as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most 
heroic chapters of history. — Indianapolis Journal. 

The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with 
unwonted interest by many readers who are weary of the conven- 
tional novel and romance. — Boston Journal. 


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Indian 


15 

Nowell 


60 



50 

35 

Kitty 


oone (illustrated) 

. .8vo 

40 

Sker 

. ,8vo 

50 

lerley 


15 

iven (illustrated).. . . 


25 

Upmore 

16mo 

35 

4to 

20 


VICTOR HUGO. 

Tiree 8vo 

T the Sea 8vo 

of a Crime 4to 


25 

50 

10 


CHARLES READE. PRICE 

A Perilous Secret 12mo $0 40 

4 to 20 

Singleheart and Doubleface, &c. 

(illustrated) 4to 15 

A Hero and a Martyr 8vo 15 

A Simpleton 8vo 35 

A Woman-Hater (illustrated). .8vo 30 

12mo 25 

Good Stories (illustrated). . . .12mo 50 

“ 4to 20 

It is Never Too Late to Mend. .8vo 35 

Foul Play 8vo 30 

White Lies 8vo 30 

Peg Woffington, and Other Tales 

8vo 35 

Put Yourself in His Place (illus- 
trated) 8vo 35 

A Terrible Temptation (ill’d). . .8vo 25 

The Jilt (illustrated) 32mo 20 

The Coming Man 32mo 20 

The Picture 16mo 15 

Jack of All Trades 16mo 15 

GEORGE ELIOT. 

Felix Holt 8vo 50 

Middlemarch 8vo 75 

Daniel Deronda 8vo 50 

Romola (illustrated) 8vo 50 

Scenes of Clerical Life 8vo 50 

Silas Marner 12mo 25 

Adam Bede 4to 25 

Impressions ofTheo. Such....4to 10 

Amos Barton 32mo 20 

Mr. Gilfil’s Love Story 32mo 20 

Janet’s Repentance 32mo 20 

Brother Jacob.— The Lifted Veil 

32m o 20 

WILLIAM BLACK. 

An Adventure in Thule 4to 10 

A Daughter of Ileth 8vo 35 

A Princess of Thule 8vo 50 

Green Pastures and Piccadilly. 8 vo 50 

Iu Far Lochaber 8vo 40 

In Silk Attire 8vo 35 

Judith Shakespeare.. 4to 20 

Kilmeny 8vo 35 

Macleod of Dare (illustrated), .8vo 60 

4to 15 

Madcap Violet 8vo 50 

Monarch of Mincing Lane (illus- 
trated) 8vo 50 

Prince Fortunatus (illustrated) 8vo 50 

Sabina Zembra 4to 20 

Strange Adv’s of a Phaeton 8vo 50 

Strange Adventures of a House- 
boat (illustrated) 8vo 50 

Sunrise 4to 20 

That Beautiful Wretch (ill’d). . .4to 20 

The Maid of Killeena, &c 8vo 40 

Three Feathers (illustrated). . .8vo 50 

White Heather. 4to 20 

White Wiugs 4to 20 

II. RIDER HAGGARD. 

She (illustrated), 4to, 25 cts. ; lGmo 25 

King Solomon’s Mines 4to 20 

Jess 4 to 15 

Allan Quatermain (ill’d) 16mo 25 

Mr. Meeson’s Will 16mo 25 

Maiwa’s Revenge (ill’d) 16mo 25 

Col. Quaritch,V.C. (ill’d) 16mo 25 

Cleopatra (illustrated). . . . . . .16mo 25 

Beatrice (illustrated) 16mo 30 

The World’s Desire 16mo 35 


WILLIAM M. THACKERAY, tuicu 

Henry Esmond and Lovel the Wid- 

• ower (illustrated) 8vo$0 60 

Denis Duval (illustrated) 8vo 25 

Great Hoggarty Diamond 8vo 20 

Henry Esmond 8vo 50 

Lovel the Widower 8vo 20 

Vanity Fair (illustrated) 8vo 80 

Penilennis (illustrated) 8vo 75 

The Virginians (illlustrated). . .8vo 90 
TheNewcomes (illustrated) 8vo 90 

WALTER BESANT. 

Uncle Jack and Other Stories. 12mo 25 

All in a Garden Fair 4to 20 

Self or Bearer 4to 15 

For Faith and Freedom 8vo 50 

The Bell of St. Paul’s 8vo 35 

The Inner House 8vo 30 

The World Went Very Well Then 

(illustrated) 4to 25 

The Children of Gibeon 8vo 50 

The Holy Rose 4to 20 

Katherine Regina 4to 15 

Dorothy Forster 4to 20 

To Call Her Mine (illustrated). .4to 20 

Herr Paulus 8vo 35 

Armorel of Lyonesse (ill’d) 8vo 50 

All Sorts and Conditions of Men 
• (illustrated) 8vo 60 

BESANT & RICE. 

Golden Butterfly 8vo 40 

When the Ship Comes IIome.32mo 25 

'Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay 32mo 20 

Sweet Nelly 4to 10 

Shepherds All and Maidens Fair. 

32m o 25 

The Chaplain of the Fleet 4to 20 

By Celia’s Arbor (illustrated). .8vo 50 

The Captain’s Room 4to 10 

So They Were Married (ill’d).. .4to 20 

W. CLARK RUSSELL. 

Auld Lang Syne 4to 10 

A Sailor’s Sweetheart 4to 15 

A Sea Queen 4 to 20 

A Strange Voyage 4to 20 

A Book for the Hammock 4to 20 

Wreck of the “ Grosvenor ”... 8vo 30 

An Ocean Free-Lance 4to 20 

An Ocean Tragedy 8vo 50 

The“ Lady Maud ” (illustrated). 4to 20 

Marooned 8vo 25 

My Shipmate Louise 8vo 50 

My Watch Below 4to 20 

In the Middle Watch 12mo 25 

Little Loo 4to 20 

On the Fo’k’sle Head 4to 15 

Voyage to the Cape 12mo 25 

Round the Galley Fire 4to 15 

The Golden Hope 4to 20 

Jack’s Courtship 4to 25 

John Holdsworth, Chief Mate..4to 20 
The Frozen Pirate (illustrated) .4to 25 

THOMAS HARDY. 

Romantic Adventures of a Milk- 

Maid 4to 10 

The Woodlanders 4to 20 

Fellow-Townsmen 32mo 20 

A Laodicean (illustrated) 4to 20 

Wessex Tales 8vo 30 

CHARLES KINGSLEY. 

Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet.l2mo 25 

Hypatia 4to 20 

Yeast. A Problem 12mo 25 


Published by IIAPPER & BROTHERS, New \ ork. 

,v of the above works sent bu mail, postage prepaid , to any part of the United States , Canada , or Mexico t 
J on receipt of ine price. 


jggp* Read what the New York Sun, New York Times, and Chi 
Tribune say about 


HARPER’S PERIODICAL 


The Magazine is an overflowing store of good literature 
exquisite art — a delightful production deserving all the fame an 
the material success which have been won by it. The Week 
a rarely illustrated chronicle of the year’s events ; there is no en 
pleasure and profit in its pages. . . . The Bazar is a repositor 
fashion, and a gallery of some of the finest engravings of the t 
The Young People is a treasure-house fascinating to every 
and girl as well as to plenty of persons older. A remarkable 
valuable, an instructive and delightful, line of publications, inde< 
New York Sun, February 14 , 1891. 

Whether treated each one as an individual production or 
erally as a class, Harper’s Periodicals represent the highest 
of American literary and illustrative work. . . . Never have the 
lishers of the Magazine, the Weekly, the Bazar, or You 
People lowered that high standard which was assumed in their fi 
numbers. Modifications and improvements have of course follow 
until to-day it is difficult to conceive how they could be better 
Looking at the literary side alone, the best-known writers at ho 
and abroad contribute to these publications. For the proper p 
sentation of subject, pictorially, leading artists furnish their desig 
to be translated by woodcuts or process, whichever method sho' 
better the illustrative idea. A column eulogistic of these public 
tions might be written, and would barely suffice to specify the 
many singular merits. It must be at least satisfactory to the pu 
lishers to know that wherever English is the language in use the 
a Magazine, a Weekly, a Bazar, or a Young People bearir 
the imprint of Harper & Brothers is read. There are other t 
umphs than “the drum beats” which circle the world. — New Yor 
Times, March 8 , 1891. ^ a £/ y 

It is safe to say that nowhere else, at any time, has such a mas 
of good literature and good art been given forth in periodical fori 
as that issued each year by this oldest of existing American publisl 
ing houses. — Chicago Tribune, February 14 , 1891 . 


SUBSCRIPTION PRICE FOR HARPER’S PERIODICALS. 

HARPER’S MAGAZINE, per year $4001 HARPER’S BAZAR, per year . . .$4 1 

HARPER’S WEEKLY, per year. .. . . 4 00 | HARPER’S YOUNG PEOPLE, per year. . 2 < 
Postage free to all subscribes, in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. 



















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